Climate Bills and a Green Economy

Cap and Trader Demands Carbon Derivatives Bubble

October 18, 2009

Infowars - In The Guardian, Nicholas Stern argues for poverty, misery, and the latest bankster scam. He says the “rich countries” not only have to reduce emissions significantly but also tax their not-so rich populations and give the money to developing countries. Current efforts to reduce carbon emissions are not enough, according to Stern.

“By 2050, the global population is projected to rise to 9 billion, so average per head emissions will have to be lower than 2 tonnes per year on average. For rich countries, this will require a cut in annual emissions by at least 80% by 2050,” he writes.

In other words, between now and 2050, the “rich countries” (or their populations anyway) will have their standards of living reduced significantly. They will be forced under international treaty to fork over $100 billion a year to developing nations.

Stern suggests “high-ambition” commitments, including a rollback of international shipping and aviation. He says a the transition to a low-carbon economy will “create a new era of prosperity and growth.”

Lord Stern, who is chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, says a reduction in carbon emissions can be realized through the operation of carbon markets.

Carbon markets and trading are another bankster bubble scheme.

“This system would create whole new classes of financial assets, which financial firms could securitize, derivatize, and speculate on,” writes Eoin O’Carroll for The Christian Science Monitor. “Many critics are pointing out that this new market for carbon derivatives could, without effective oversight, usher in another Wall Street free-for-all just like the one that precipitated the implosion of the global economy.”

Wall Street is already on the move. The Center for Public Integrity noted in February that banks have been sending climate change lobbyists to Washington in earnest and are attempting to get the American Clean Energy and Security Act rammed through Congress. It passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 219-212 in June. It now moves to the Senate.

The American Clean Energy and Security Act “is about profits, not environmental remediation,” writes Stephen Lendman. “Its emissions reduction targets are so weak, they effectively license pollution by creating a new profit center to do it.”

“Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase, insurance companies like AIG and private equity firms had virtually no reps on Capitol Hill working on global warming policy in 2003; by last year, they had about 130 climate lobbyists, the Center for Public Integrity’s analysis of Senate lobbying disclosure forms shows. About 20 additional lobbyists worked for firms and organizations wholly dedicated to carbon marketing last year,” writes Marianne Lavelle.

It is estimated that the “carbon market” and its securitized, derivatized, and speculated financial assets will ultimately be worth trillions a year to Wall Street and the bankers. It will inflate a massive bubble designed to burst like all the bubbles that came before it.

“If you think the housing and credit bubble diminished your financial security and your community, or the bailouts, or the rising gas prices did as well, hold on to your hat for what’s coming. Carbon trading is gearing up to make the housing and derivative bubbles look like target practice,” warns Catherine Austin Fitts.

“Carbon markets can and will be manipulated using the same Wall Street sleights of hand that brought us the financial crisis,” notes Rep. James Sensenbrenner.

Dennis Kuchinich cited Matt Taibbi’s Rolling Stone article on the Goldman Sach’s bubble machine. “Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression — and they are about to do it again.”

Goldman Sachs is confident Obama and Congress will pass cap and trade legislation. On October 12, The New York Times reported that Goldman Sachs has completed a $12 million carbon offsets transaction, described as “the largest deal of its kind in the United States.” The “transaction reflects growing confidence in a regulated carbon market in the United States, even though the concept is still the subject of much debate in Congress,” according to the newspaper.

Finally, Lord Stern is hardly a neutral observer merely concerned with climate change and the fate of the planet. On June 16, 2008, Dow Jones Financial News Online announced that Stern “is set to launch a rating service for carbon credits in an attempt to boost investment in the nascent market.”

EU Mulls Carbon Tax to Fight Climate Change

October 3, 2009

China View — European Union (EU) finance ministers on Friday discussed the idea of introducing a carbon tax across the 27-nation bloc as a way to help fight climate change.

“Today, there were few reactions, but all the reactions were positive,” Laszlo Kovacs, EU Commissioner for Taxation and Customs Union, told reporters after presenting the idea to EU finance ministers at an informal meeting in the Swedish port city of Gothenburg.

Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg, whose country holds the EU rotating presidency, said there had been a constructive exchange of views and that the European Commission was encouraged to make a formal proposal, possibly next year.

He said a number of ministers welcomed the idea of introducing a carbon tax to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from sectors outside the EU Emission Trading Scheme.

The EU currently runs the world’s largest Emission Trading Scheme, which imposes emission caps on certain EU industries, including power generators and some heavy industrial plants, and requires them to buy extra permit if they want to emit more.

The new carbon tax is likely to be applied to transport, agriculture, forestry, households and others.

In fact, several EU member states have already introduced such tax on national basis.

Borg said Sweden’s carbon tax had proved “very successful” since it was introduced at the start of the 1990s.

Denmark, Finland and Slovenia also have taxes on household carbon emissions resulting from heating and electricity use. France is planning to introduce a carbon tax on gasoline or diesel fuel for cars next year, hoping it can bring more revenue for the government.

But Kovacs admitted it would not be easy to reach a deal since taxation is reserved for national sovereignty under EU rules and any change requires unanimity among 27 member states.

“Introducing a new tax in the EU has never been easy, and particularly it is not easy in the time of a financial and economic crisis,” he said.

“But it is evident that the climate change is an even more disastrous global challenge than the current financial and economic crisis. It’s a question of life or death for the population of the globe,” he added.

Kovacs said the tax would not only help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the EU, but also its revenues could be used in financing the fight against climate change in the developing world.

The revenues “should be used for climate change purposes (and) to finance the climate change efforts of the developing countries, because they need some support and we need revenues to support them,” he said.

EU finance ministers also had an “active and constructive” discussion on the issue of climate financing today, according to the Swedish EU presidency.

World governments are expected to reach a new deal on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to replace the Kyoto Protocol after it expires in 2012 at a United Nations conference on climate change in Copenhagen this December, but current negotiations have been deadlocked, with climate financing proving to be a stumbling block.

Developing countries have called for generous financial support from rich countries to help them cut greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the impact of global warming, for which industrialized nations are historically responsible.

In early September, the European Commission unveiled a blueprint for scaling up international finance to help poor nations, proposing that the EU would contribute some 2 to 15 billion euros (2.9 to 22 billion U.S. dollars) a year by 2020, a sum criticized by developing countries as not enough.