But what good is aid if you can"t steal it?
The third world recipients of the generosity of developed nations are insisting that they be "immune from legal challenges and lawsuits not to mention outside inspections, much like the United Nations itself cannot be affected by decisions rendered by a sovereign nation"s government or judicial system."16
Why are these third world countries so hung up on immunity from investigation, prosecution, and financial controls?
Fox News reports that they want protection from charges of:
possible conflicts of interest in their duties,
breaches of confidentiality in their work,
violations of the due process rights of those affected by their actions,
making decisions or actions that are beyond the legal mandate of the organization or its subsidiaries.17
Already the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has come under fire in a study by consultants for the European Commission that criticized it for a "lack of transparency," "inconsistency of decisions," "conflicts of interest," and extensive support for "unsustainable technology for emissions reduction."18
Fox News, one of the few media organs to report on the request of immunity, noted that "the move to grant such immunity to an organization engaged in the redistribution of tens of billions of dollars between some of the wealthiest and the poorest nations in the world unavoidably raises questions and concerns."19
Who can forget the outright plundering by UN officials-including then secretary-general Kofi Annan"s own son-of Oil-for-Food funds in the 1990s. As doc.u.mented by an investigation by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, the theft of funds ran into the hundreds of millions of dollars that were intended for Iraq"s poor.
Since no UN official was prosecuted for stealing Oil-for-Food money, many of these same folks are in on the operations of the UNFCCC and are hungering after the vast sums a Global Climate Fund would bring in.
But the $100 billion is never enough!
The third world wants "$1.9 trillion per year ... for incremental investments in green technologies," according to UN sources. About $800 billion of this sum will be earmarked for third world countries. Fox News reports, "If the UNFCCC has its way, the new Green Climate Fund would not be answerable to the laws of any nation on earth, while it annually redistributed funds equal to roughly half of President Obama"s proposed budget for 2012."20
Instead of helping poor countries adjust to climate change, most of the money would likely flow instead into the Swiss bank accounts of third world dictators and UN officials. Otherwise, why would they care so pa.s.sionately about getting immunity?
TOWARD A GLOBAL EPA
Also central to the globalist agenda was the expansion and empowerment of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). The Rio+20 Conference expanded UNEP membership from the current fifty-eight nations to include all the world"s governments. Its financial resources were augmented. And it was given the mandate "to use international and national laws to advance sustainability, human and environmental rights and the implementation of environmental treaties."21
For now, the UNEP has only the power to issue advisory opinions and to suggest regulations to sovereign nations. But more is coming. A report to the UN in advance of the Rio+20 summit declared that "scaled-up and accelerated international cooperation" is required, with new coordination at "the international, sub-regional, and regional levels." Stronger regulation is needed, and "to avoid the proliferation of national regulations and standards, the use of relevant international standards is essential"-an area where the UN can be very helpful, the report indicates.22
For those not fluent in UN-speak, "scaled-up and accelerated international cooperation" means empowering the UNEP to bind nations to its will. New coordination at "the international, sub-regional, and regional levels" means making nations listen to its regulations and obey them. The statement that stronger regulation is needed, that "to avoid the proliferation of national regulations and standards, the use of relevant international standards is essential," means that the United Nations Environment Programme should have the right to override national regulations and impose its views by fiat on the nations of the world.23
These are the real aspirations of the globalist/socialists for the UNEP. Their ultimate game plan is spelled out in Only One Earth, written by Felix Dodds and Michael Strauss, with a forward by the inimitable Maurice Strong.
That volume, published on the eve of the Rio+20 Conference, calls for an International Court for the Environment (ICE). Noting that "there is currently no mechanism for compliance and enforcement in sustainable development, as exists in other areas, such as war crimes or trade," Dodds and Strauss call for the court to "become the princ.i.p.al court dealing with international environmental law."24
It would, they explain, "help to clarify existing treaties and other international environmental obligations for states and for all other parties including trans-national corporations. It would do this through dispute resolution, advisory opinions, and the adjudication of contentious issues presently unclear or unresolved."25
The Rio+20 globalists also established a ten-year plan to shift governmental procurement-in all nations and at all levels-toward goods and services that enhance their environmental goals. Noting that such purchases account for 1525 percent of the economies of developed nations and an even larger share in poorer countries, the Rio+20 Conference sought to get all countries to alter their purchasing policies to make them greener.
But the real future thrust of environmental regulation will come against private businesses. The Rio+20 Conference lamented that only "an estimated 25 per cent of the 20,000 companies tracked by Bloomberg are reporting their environmental, social and governance footprints-but 75 per cent are not."26
The conference urged all companies to report their environmental and social impacts. That, of course, is the first step. Armed with this disclosure, the global/environmentalists will seek to reward and punish companies based on their environmental and social policies.
Rio called for helping "pension funds to invest in companies with a long-term perspective of profits through sustainability reporting while a.s.sisting governments in measuring the contribution of multi-nationals towards national sustainability goals."27
In other words, if you pay off the third world, the UNEP will make sure you get contracts, investments, and regulatory support. If not, watch out!
As part of their plan for reshaping our global economy, the Rio+20 Conference called for the replacement of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the central measurement of national wealth. Condemning the "narrowness" of GDP as a measurement of economies, it called for a new measurement that would "encourage governments to push forward on requiring companies to report their environmental, social, and governance footprints."28
Once private companies measure the extent to which their operations drain the world"s wealth through adverse economic or social policies, the UN wants to recalculate the GDP of each country to subtract the negative consequences of its growth.
The vector of this new push is easy to recognize. It would have each company admit and quantify how much it has subtracted from world and national wealth by extracting minerals, endangering the environment, laying off workers, closing plants, etc. By measuring this "environmental and social damage," the UN lays the predicate for fining or taxing or otherwise regulating companies and nations for their damaging policies and programs.
The partic.i.p.ants at the Rio+20 were not happy with the outcome despite its evident progress toward global governance. They want mandatory and binding global governance to control all issues related to the global economy, environmental policies, third world development, and the transfer of wealth to poor nations. Anything less is inadequate. But they are patient and keep coming back for more bites at the apple.
The New York Times reported sadly that the Rio+20 conference agreed on "so few specifics, so few targets, so few tangible decisions ... that some partic.i.p.ants were derisively calling it "Rio Minus 20." "29
k.u.mi Naidoo, executive director of Greenpeace, was particularly dissatisfied, calling the Rio+20 Conference "a failure of epic proportions."30
The radical greens all piled on. La.s.se Gustavsson, executive director for conservation at the World Wildlife Fund, said that "sophisticated UN diplomacy has given us nothing more than more poverty, more conflict and more environmental destruction."31
The Times noted that "the final statement from Rio ... is 283 paragraphs of k.u.mbaya that "affirm," "recognize," "underscore," "urge" and "acknowledge" seemingly every green initiative and environmental problem from water crises and creeping deserts to climate change and overfishing. Women"s rights, indigenous peoples, children, mining, tourism, trade unions and the elderly also get shout-outs in the doc.u.ment. The word "reaffirm" is used 60 times."32
The German daily newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung editorialized:
To be sure, all of the great questions facing humanity make an appearance in the doc.u.ment, but without any attempt at a binding agreement. The Rio+20 conference, which really should have provided a new spark, has instead shined the spotlight on global timidity. Postpone, consider, examine: Even the conference motto-"The Future We Want"-sounds like an insult. If this is the future we want, then good night.
If all countries are satisfied with the lowest common denominator, if they no longer want to discuss what needs to be discussed ... then the dikes are open. There is no need any more for a conference of 50,000 attendees. Resolutions that are so wishy-washy can be interpreted by every member state as they wish. No one needs Rio.33
Doubtless, the greens would have been much happier if, instead of the words "affirm," "recognize," "underscore," "urge," and "acknowledge," the Rio final doc.u.ment included more robust prose like "require," "regulate," "mandatory," and "dictated." But, there"s always tomorrow.
But the conference did provide a clear indication of where the environmentalists and globalists are heading. The Washington Post reports that "some of the biggest issues activists wanted to see in the doc.u.ment that didn"t make it in included a call to end subsidies for fossil fuels, language underscoring the reproductive rights of women, and some words on how nations might mutually agree to protect the high seas, areas that fall outside any national jurisdictions."34
The Post quotes Greenpeace"s k.u.mi Naidoo as saying: "[W]e saw anything of value in the early text getting removed one by one. What is left is the clear sense that the future we want is not one our leaders can actually deliver. We now need to turn the anger people around the world are feeling into creative, thoughtful and meaningful action."35
Rio may not have given the globalists all they wanted, but they received a lot. And we will give them more and more and more unless we realize that their real goal is the forcible transfer of our wealth to them and the surrender of our national sovereignty to a world body.
PART SIX