A Chill Wind Blows From Copenhagen

An international conference is set to begin in Copenhagen in December of this year, regarding the United Nations Climate Change Treaty, scheduled to be signed in Copenhagen. Lord Christopher Monckton, the noted AGW skeptic who has repeatedly and so-far unsuccessfully challenged Al Gore to a climate change debate, spoke recently about this meeting and this treaty, and what he had to say was chilling. The following link is to the blog Global Climate Scan, and I thank them for posting this:

http://www.globalclimatescam.com/?p=572

The video is only about 4 minutes long and I encourage you to listen to it.

Lord Monckton is concerned that this treaty will create a "world government" that will serve to redistribute wealth from the richer, developed nations to the poorer, less developed ones. It also will supersede our own Constitution, according to his interpretation of Article VI, paragraph 2. This interpretation, unfortunately, is shared by other constitutional scholars and by many judges, and there are judicial precedents establishing the fact that treaties can override state and Federal laws and even the Constitution itself. (See this discussion of the failed Bricker amendment from the 1950's.)

I have skimmed the draft copy of the treaty linked by Global Climate Scam. The treaty establishes a set of international goals and obligations, among which is the diminishment of CO2 production by the developed nations and the provision of funds to the less developed nations to develop energy sources that are CO2 friendly as well as provision of funds to help the less developed nations with adaptation to the adverse effects of "climate change", as these less developed nations will likely be the ones most seriously affected by the predicted effects of such "change".

The word "government" is used in the sense of setting up a governance system to control the vast bureaucracies overseeing the large number of carbon mitigation programs, compliance programs, financial funds for various projects, and adaptation processes called for in the treaty. There is no call for anything that one would recognize as a government, with bodies like a legislature, judiciary and the like. Rather there is the "Conference of the Parties", a reference to a committee to be made up by representatives of the signatories to the treaty.

This webwork of bureaucracies and what-not, controlled by the Conference of the Parties, would have under their thumbs a vast portion of the economies of the world. It wouldn't be a complete world government, but it would be a governing structure over a significant portion of the world's economies and thus its peoples. And it would not be directly responsive to any elected body or body of electors. A democracy this isn't; it isn't even close to a democratic republic. But it sounds like it could easily become a demagogic oligarchy.

The draft treaty is 181 pages of scintillating prose --not! It is mind numbing. As a document to establish a government, it is not anywhere near as inspiring as our Constitution, and certainly not as brief. It is also full of placeholders and alternate clauses and even alternate goal levels, which I'm sure are thing that are intended to be finally determined during the meeting in Copenhagen in December. But the overall framework is easy to see (if you don't fall asleep too often while reading it). Let's look at some of the more memorable passages.

Any lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason to postpone or scale down action on adaptation.

Acknowledging that current atmospheric concentrations are principally the result of historical emissions of greenhouse gases, the most significant share of which has originated in developed countries.

Further acknowledging that developed countries have a historical responsibility for their disproportionate contribution to the causes and consequences of climate change, reflecting their disproportionate historical use of a shared global carbon space since 1850 as well as their proposed continuing disproportionate use of the remaining global carbon space.

Warming of the climate system, as a consequence of human activity, is unequivocal.

These are just a few examples of the heavy-handedness of this document. In actuality, the document is separated into sections, and each section has a preamble of sorts in which these ideas are repeated with only minor modifications in the wording. 'Climate change is real, dammit! Man is responsible! And especially those evil developed countries!'

So what are the developed nations to do? A lot, actually. This is a treaty to reduce CO2 levels, and it sets out these goals ad infinitum, but without getting into technical details. If they did that, they'd need to talk to the engineers and the real scientists, who would tell them they have their craniums firmly placed up their rectums, that what they're planning isn't possible. But let's not let technical possibility get in the way of feel-good notions.

For this purpose, Parties shall collectively reduce global emissions by at least 45 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020 and by at least 95 per cent from 1990 levels by 2050.

The long-term global goal for emission reductions should be set as a statistically robust ceiling for the average global temperature increase strictly attributable to anthropogenic interference having a global effect, of [x] degrees Centigrade above mid-19th century levels, with per capita accumulative emission convergence between all Parties.

By global emissions they mean CO2. If we have to reduce CO2 emissions to 95% of 1990 levels by 2050, can we do this and still let all 400+ million (by that time) of us breathe? If not, who gets to exhale and who doesn't? Or will we do it on an odd-even day rotation based on birthdates? And when they set that temperature target of x degrees Celsius (come on guys, get with it -- Centigrade was disposed of a couple of decades ago) above mid-19th century levels, I hope they remember that there was a mini-Ice Age just ending in the mid-19th century.

Guess who gets to pay for all this, by the way? If you guessed the developed countries, you win! Now take a look at your prize. These are just at few of the proposals that are offered in the treaty, and I wouldn't be surprised it they decided to use all of them.

An assessed contribution from developed country Parties based on the principles of equity, common but differentiated responsibilities, respective capabilities, GDP, GDP per capita, the polluter pays principle historical responsibility of Annex I Parties, historical climate debt, including adaptation debt, amounting to [[0.5–1][0.8][2] per cent of gross national product] at least [0.5–1 per cent of GDP]].

Assessed contributions [of at least 0.7% of the annual GDP of developed country Parties] [from developed country Parties and other developed Parties included in Annex II to the Convention] [taking into account historical contribution to concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere]

By 2020 the scale of financial flows to support adaptation in developing countries must be [at least USD 67 billion] [in the range of USD 70–140 billion] per year. [Sources of new and additional financial support for adaptation [must meet the full agreed incremental costs of adaptation and initially be within a minimum range of USD 50–86 billion per annum and regularly updated in the light of new emerging science, financial estimates and the degree of emission reductions achieved.]

A uniform global levy of USD 2 per tonne of CO2 for all countries with per capita emissions higher than [1.5][2.0] tonnes of CO2; the LDCs shall be exempt.

A [global] levy of 2 per cent on international financial market [monetary] transactions to Annex I Parties.

Agreed penalties or fines on non-compliance of developed country Parties with their commitments to reduce emissions and provide support in the form of financial resources, technology transfer and capacity-building.

Limited/reduced time patents on climate friendly technologies.

Those first three look like they are the same thing, and they are. But they are mentioned in the funding process of different parts of the treaty, so I would assume that we are talking about national levies of anywhere from 2-3.5% of GDP, plus hundreds of billions more. The US GDP in 2008 was 14.4 trillion dollars, so 2-3.5% of that would be in the range of 280-500 billion dollars. If I'm wrong and the maximum is only 0.8% of GDP that would still be 115 billion dollars. Per year.

Calculate your carbon footprint! Mine is at least 18 tons of CO2 per year. I was disappointed. I thought it would be bigger than that. My business activities aren't included, however, which is why I said at least 18 tons. Take your number and multiply it by $2. That's your share of the United States' carbon levy. Do you think the USA will pay this for you? Or do you imagine that it will be added on as a line on your 1040?

The limitations on patents is designed to facilitate (read steal) CO2 reduction and energy efficiency technologies so that they can be given to less developed nations to exploit. And of course there would be provisions to fine countries who aren't following the rules.

But what do the less developed countries get to do? They're exempt from the CO2 levy, they (supposedly; think China) don't have CO2 emissions to reduce. So what is their responsibility under this treaty?

Recalling that economic and social development and poverty eradication are the first and overriding priorities of the developing countries.

So why do these nations get this Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card?

Recognizing that the right to development is a basic human right that is undeprivable.

Funny, I don't remember seeing that one in our Constitution. Our Constitution only guarantees us liberty with which we have the freedom to develop through our own efforts, but not on the backs of anyone else. But I forget that this is being written by the refugees from the discredited global communism movement.

The good news is that none of this nonsense applies to any nation sensible enough to tell these idiots where they can put their freaking treaty. But our President is Barack Obama, and our Senate is dominated by whacked-out weirdo liberal Democrats.

We have been worried about "health care reform" and the Cap and Tax scheme. This lunacy tops them all. We all must do everything in our power to fight this. And we only have a couple of months to do it in.