Unconscionable Rascals - (Karma analysis)

Even when the poor man’s house is on fire, the so-called American elites want to make money out of such events. For no fault of theirs,  the poor of the world, especially those in developing countries has to pay dearly for the all destroying fire,  fanned out of control, by the rich industrialized nations. In fact the rich nations are trying to instill a sense of guilt in the poor by pointing to their share towards  global warming.  The rich nations bigoted ‘scientific research’  has manufactured the conclusion that  ‘barbaric home-cooking’ using firewood and other locally available fuel like dried cow-dung  and decay of agricultural waste in farm lands  are two other major causes for global warming. It is very unfortunate that a Indian who shared a Nobel Prize, ie Rajendra K Pachouri, is  still the chairman of a committee which is behind such a campaign. Well, he has to return the favour conferred on him by way of the Nobel Prize.

American business honcho’s and American policy makers are unconscionable rascals. To be sure about this, kindly  read the following news report in today’s (15/11/2013)  The  Hindu. I had already highlighted America’s business interests linked to climate change in my blog posted on 08/11/2013 http://msradha.blogspot.in/2013/11/china-should-lend-ear-to-indians.html

The full text of today’s  news report is copied here :-

U.S. to oppose mechanism to fund climate change adaptation in poor nations

NITIN SETHI

Internal briefing paper accessed by The Hindu shows U.S. wants to promote its tech firms

In an internal briefing paper prepared for its diplomats across the world before the Warsaw climate negotiations, which The Hindu accessed, the U.S. has opposed the setting up of a separate mechanism on ‘loss and damage’. It has also pushed primarily for the role of private investments and finance to enable the poor countries to adapt to climate change.

The U.S., according to the paper, wants a 2015 climate agreement where no country is forced to take higher emission reduction pledges than the ones they initially volunteer. It has informed its diplomats to keep pushing the line with other countries that the U.S. was doing enough domestically on the climate change front and these were priorities for President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry.

The cabled message, drafted by senior state department officials, sets not only the content for what is to be done internally by the U.S. delegation at the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) but also how the diplomats should posture publicly to help the delegation that would negotiate at Warsaw.

On setting the emission targets under the new agreement to be signed in 2015, the note informs, “In Warsaw we seek to establish an expectation that parties will submit their commitments by early 2015 so as to finalise an agreement in Paris [in 2015 itself].”

Pushing pledges

Under the 2015 agreement, to become operational in 2020, the U.S. government has been pushing that all countries volunteer to pledge their commitments. The note says, “Specifically we are advocating an approach under which countries — both developed and developing — will put forth nationally determined mitigation commitments, followed by a transparent consultative process that will give other countries and civil society the opportunity to analyse and comment upon such commitments.”

In a revealing line it adds, “The idea is that sunshine will provide an incentive for countries to put forth ambitious commitments in the first instance and, even if not, there will be an opportunity for countries to decide to enhance their commitments before they are finalised.”

The U.S. stance differs radically from the demand of groups such as those of the small island-states, EU and others which require that the volunteered targets be increased after a review to see if they add up to the effort required to keep global temperatures under control.

The Hindu contacted senior U.S. negotiators and their spokesperson at Warsaw personally and through e-mail with specific questions about the briefing paper. The delegation responded with the statement, “The U.S. is dedicated to achieving an ambitious, effective and workable outcome in the UNFCCC and in Warsaw, and our positions are designed to further this goal. We are engaging with all countries to find solutions that will give momentum to the effort to tackle climate change.”

That the U.S. sees climate change as an opportunity to also leverage and open economies of developing countries to clean-tech investments is also revealed, “The work we have undertaken in 2013 has begun to lay the groundwork for an ambitious and wide-ranging efforts aimed at catalysing low-emission, climate resilient investment in developing countries, though of course we recognise that much work remains to develop the tools necessary to shift the global economy in this direction.”

The poor countries have consistently warned that public investments can neither be adequate nor predictable and can work merely as a complementary source of finance. They also warn that private investment does not move towards the priority of adaptation activities where the returns are negligible but the monies important to save lives. The U.N. climate convention imposes the obligation on the developed world to provide funds and technologies to the poor countries to ‘enable’ the latter to undertake climate action but the U.S. position in the briefing paper talks of pushing in investments instead.

The U.S. has said in public earlier that it sees public funding in the climate change arena more as a tool to leverage private investments. Developing countries have demanded that the U.S. and other developed countries put forth a clear timeline for when and how they shall provide for the $100-billion annual fund by 2020 they had earlier promised. But the briefing paper remains silent on the U.S. committing to any such time line in Warsaw. The talk of any scaling up funds between now and 2020 is ignored.

It instead says, “We’re also working to intensify our coordination in the context of the Green Climate Fund board to shape an institution that could leverage private investment more effectively than any other multilateral climate fund.”

‘Loss and damage’

The U.S. acknowledges in the cabled briefing to its diplomats that “Finance is another contentious issue, with many developing countries feeling that there is lack of clarity on climate finance between now and 2020”. But, in effect, the U.S .strategy is to work outside the UNFCCC to leverage private funds and it plans to talk of this through the Warsaw talks too.

On the controversial issue of loss and damage, demand by developing nations that developed countries pay compensation for damage to life and property that cannot be avoided despite the best of adaptation and emission reduction efforts, the U.S. plans to not let the idea become a full-fledged separate mechanism at Warsaw. After very strongly opposing any such mechanism. the U.S. had to give in last year and allow talks.

At Warsaw, the briefing paper shows, it plans to ensure that while the issue is called ‘loss and damage’ it does not get a life of its own but is swallowed by the existing track which would ensure the issues of ‘liability’ and ‘compensation’ are thrown out.

The document says: “It’s our sense that the longer countries look at issues like compensation and liability, the more they will realise this isn’t productive avenue for the UNFCCC to go down.”

It adds, “We are strongly in favour of creating an institutional arrangement on loss and damage that is under the Convention’s adaptation track, rather than creating a third stream of action that’s separate from mitigation and adaptation.”

The Hindu Link is http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-international/us-to-oppose-mechanism-to-fund-climate-change-adaptation-in-poor-nations/article5353229.ece