Say Anything Blog

Noel Sheppard

Have you noticed the genie concerning the real modus operandi behind climate alarmism beginning to peek its head out of the bottle lately?

After the United Nations announced earlier in the week that rich countries - code for America, of course - are going to have to pay billions of dollars to help poor nations deal with global warming, several international press outlets published articles of similar content.

Is it possible media are recognizing that since the Democrat presidential candidates are all advocating a tax the rich platform it is safe to begin discussing the need for developed nations to foot the bill for international global warming solutions?

Consider an op-ed published Friday by Britain’s Guardian (emphasis added, reader is strongly advised to hide wallet or purse before proceeding):

Our starting point is deeply inequitable with poor countries certain to be hit earliest and hardest by climate change. But rich countries are responsible for the bulk of past emissions: US emissions are currently more than 20 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per annum, Europe’s are 10-15 tonnes, China’s five or more tonnes, India’s around one tonne, and most of Africa much less than one.

For a 50% reduction in global emissions by 2050, the world average per capita must drop from seven tonnes to two or three. Within these global targets, even a minimal view of equity demands that the rich countries’ reductions should be at least 80% - either made directly or purchased. An 80% target for rich countries would bring equality of only the flow of current emissions - around the two to three tonnes per capita level. In fact, they will have consumed the big majority of the available space in the atmosphere.

Rich countries also need to provide funding for three more key elements of a global deal. First, there should be an international programme to combat deforestation, which contributes 15-20% of emissions. For $10bn-$15bn per year, half the deforestation could be stopped.

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Finally, rich countries should honour their commitment to 0.7% of GDP in aid by 2015. This would yield increases in flows of $150bn-$200bn per year.

Sounds like virtually any Democrat presidential candidate’s tax the rich agenda, doesn’t it?

Please be advised that this column was written by Sir Nicholas Stern, the former chief economist of the World Bank whose October 2006 Review on the Economics of Climate Change has become a blueprint for eco-socialism worldwide.

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The “rich-must-pay” mantra seems to be catching on around the globe. And for good reason. Green campaigners and eco-scientists from Europe and the USA have been claiming for years that it’s Western GHG emissions that have been causing most of the world’s environmental problems and disasters. If that were the case, the West would have to pay a devastating price. There can be little doubt that this form of climate ‘justice’ threatens to burden the developed world with astronomical costs, undermining its international competitiveness and destroying its self-confidence. The West will rue the day they handed over the agenda of international politics and economic policy-making to their green bureaucrats and eco-scientists.

I can’t agree more. And, with Democrat presidential candidates advocating the same economic policy here, it seems a metaphysical certitude that the U.S. paying for international global warming solutions will be presented to American citizens by a green press as eco-justice for our relative prosperity.

Scarier still, with the U.N. leading the way in the spread of eco-socialism, if Americans don’t quickly recognize the developing scheme, we could be setting ourselves up for decades of international extortion from every country claiming we’re responsible for its environmental and societal problems.

More frightening is that one major political party in this nation, along with its media minions, largely agrees with this premise.

Heaven help us.

Scary stuff.  And it’s all based on a lie.