Global Warming Science: www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming

Carbon Monetization – The Insiders

[last update: 2010/05/09]

The global warming scare is turning out to be the biggest scam ever devised. Why has this worldwide apocalyptic scare been created? The answer is $$Money. (And of course power, since those benefiting the most were already rich). The big money is in the carbon credit trading.

This document looks at some of the initial CO2 credit traders aiming to benefit big time and their connections to creating the CO2 scare.

[update 2010/05/09] Obama’s Connection

The section on the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) has added information about Obama’s connections – he was a member of the board for the Joyce Foundation, active from 1994-2002, when they funneled funds to the Chicago Climate Exchange at the time the CCX was created. [http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/politics/3422-secrets-exposed-goldman-sachs-may-be-obamas-enron]

See: http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/WhiteHouseDeception.htm

[update 2009/12/30] Trading Fraud

Carbon Credit fraud causes more than 5 billion euros damage for European Taxpayer

[09 Dec 2009]

“The European Union (EU) Emission Trading System (ETS) has been the victim of fraudulent traders in the past 18 months. This resulted in losses of approximately 5 billion euros for several national tax revenues. It is estimated that in some countries, up to 90% of the whole market volume was caused by fraudulent activities. … Mr. Wainwright, Director of Europol, says "These criminal activities endanger the credibility of the European Union Emission Trading System and lead to the loss of significant tax revenue for governments. Europol is using its expertise and information capabilities to help target the organised crime groups involved".”

[http://www.europol.europa.eu/index.asp?page=news&news=pr091209.htm]

Background

House speaker Pelosi (Jan. 2009): “She said she hopes to hold a vote before December, when climate negotiators gather in Copenhagen, Denmark, to work on a successor to the treaty many countries adopted in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997. "I believe we have to because we see that as a source of revenue," she said, noting that proposed cap-and-trade bills would raise billions of dollars by forcing major emitters to buy credits to release greenhouse gases.” [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/22/MN5Q15EJQ2.DTL]

Senator Dianne Feinstein of California introduced a measure for government oversight as part of the CO2 trading. She said: “This landmark legislation will not only significantly reduce our nation’s carbon footprint, it will also generate tremendous economic potential. In fact, new carbon markets – with annual values of approximately $300 billion – are expected to emerge once Congress establishes a cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions.” [Ref.4]

Maurice strong is at the forefront of the CO2 monetization. His closing remarks at the 2007 International Financial Forum global conference: “I have to disclose my own association with this process in my earlier role in the United Nations negotiations which established the basis for the development of these new opportunities and now as Chairman of the China Carbon Corporation and Vice-Chairman of the Chicago Climate Exchange.” [Ref.24] He states: “Already, internationally carbon revenues are increasing rapidly, generating 2.4 billion dollars in 2005 and 5.2 billion dollars in 2006. Although it is difficult to forecast the future size of the market there are many signs of substantial and rapid growth. The OECD estimates that its members will have a shortage of four to five billion tons of CO2 commitments under the Kyoto Protocol up to the year 2012 when its current period ends. It is therefore likely that overall the carbon market will be short by some one to one and half billion CERs by 2012. This would produce significantly rising prices, particularly as the European Union penalties for non-compliance will be raised to 100 Euros per ton in the 2008-2012 periods.”

The vast sums that will be generated by transferring money from consumers to credit traders will also increase government. In the case of the (non-elected) EU government: "The EU plans in their current shape will not lead to any more CO2 emissions savings, as those are capped, but bring sky-high new carbon taxes. … Power prices would increase by 50 percent after 2012. … the auctions will bring the government 15 billion euros ($21 billion) of additional annual income which would have to be borne by consumers.” [Ref.23]

The Chicago Climate Exchange

The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) [Ref.1] bills itself as “the world’s first and North America’s only voluntary, legally binding integrated greenhouse gas emissions reduction, registry and trading system. … The founder, Chairman and CEO of CCX is economist and financial innovator Dr. Richard L. Sandor, who was named a Hero of the Planet by Time Magazine in 2002 for founding CCX, and in 2007 as the "father of carbon trading." At CCX we find many of the United Nations related politicians who originated the global warming hysteria (see www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/GW_History.htm for the details on the United Nations role in this).

CCX directors include Maurice Strong, who was behind the creation of the global warming hysteria at the United Nations. Strong was special advisor to UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and later was Senior Advisor to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan; Senior Advisor to World Bank President James Wolfensohn; Chairman of the Earth Council; Chairman of the World Resources Institute; Co-Chairman of the Council of the World Economic Forum; and member of Toyota's International Advisory Board as well as chairman of several energy companies. [Ref.2]. Another board member, Stuart Eizenstat “has held a number of key positions at senior levels in the U.S. Government. During the Clinton Administration he served as U.S. Ambassador to the European Union (1993-1996), Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade (1996-97); Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs (1997-99), … [he] was also Chief Domestic Policy Adviser and Executive Director of the White House Domestic Policy Staff for President Jimmy Carter (1977-1981). Ambassador Eizenstat played a prominent role in the development of key international initiatives, including and the negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, where he led the US delegation.”

CCX external advisors include Strong’s cohort Elizabeth Dowdeswell, who is “a former Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Before joining UNEP, Ms. Dowdeswell was the Assistant Deputy Minister of Environment Canada. In that capacity she played a leading role in global efforts to negotiate the treaty on climate change adopted at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. She was Canada's permanent representative to the World Meteorological Organization, principal delegate to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change”. The connection to the UN goes back to the 1992 UN Rio Earth Summit, when Climate Exchange delivered a paper on the “feasibility of a market-based solution to global warming”. [Ref.3] IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri is also on the External Advisory Board. http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/content.jsf?id=68

In 2005, CCX launched the European Climate Exchange (ECX), now the leading exchange operating in the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme. CCX also launched the Chicago Climate Futures Exchange (CCFE), the world's first environmental derivatives exchange. Since 2006, CCX, ECX and CCFE have been owned by Climate Exchange Plc, a publicly traded company listed on the AIM of the London Stock Exchange.

In 2005 Governor Bill Richardson signed up New Mexico (fourth largest oil and second largest natural gas producing state) as the first state to join the CCX. Also in 2005, CCX announced (at the 11th Conference of the United Nations Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change) an agreement with Canada’s financial derivatives exchange – Montreal Exchange – to “develop trading, clearing and registry services for the Canadian carbon market. … The Canadian cap and trade program primarily targets some 700 entities with large GHG emissions”.

In 2006 CCX Chairman & CEO Richard Sandor participated in the World Economic Forum (WEF) panel in Davos called “Carbon Down, Profits Up: Opportunities, Branding and Climate Change” -- CCX and WEF have an agreement that allows CCX members to register their emissions in the GHG registry without further verification. Also in 2006, CCX formed the New York Climate Exchange and Northeast Climate Exchange to “develop financial instruments relevant to the Northeast Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), an electricity cap and trade program under development by northeast state governments.”

In 2007 CCX administered a reverse auction of CCX Carbon Financial Instrument (CFI) contracts derived from U.S.-based offset projects. The auction was designed to meet the U.S. House of Representatives’ request to purchase CFI contracts derived from domestic greenhouse gas mitigation projects as part of its “Green the Capitol Initiative” being administered through the House Chief Administrative Officer and described in the June 21, 2007 report to Speaker Pelosi.

In the March 2008 report to shareholders, Climate Exchange plc reports the company “unambiguously became the global leader in environmental exchange traded markets in both volume and profits. … The current bipartisan Warner-Lieberman bill is calling for dramatic reductions and a baseline of over 6 billion tonnes. This would represent a market three times the size of Europe. Your company is well positioned to emerge as the leading exchange in this sector. … We are very hopeful and believe that the suite of products on IFEX will enable it to expand and become a major exchange in weather derivatives. There are also opportunities in the longer run in water quality and quantity issues which we continue to research.” [Ref.3]

Goldman Sachs has also purchased a stake in the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) parent company Climate Exchange (which now totals 19% [http://climateerinvest.blogspot.com/2009/06/richard-sandor-barack-obama-and.html]).

In 2000 and 2001, the CCX was provided with grants by the Joyce Foundation [http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/content.jsf?id=1]. CCX Executive Vice President, Paula DiPerna, and President of CCX International, formerly served as President of the Joyce Foundation in Chicago [http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/content.jsf?id=139] Obama was a member of the board for the Joyce Foundation, active from 1994-2002, when they funneled funds to the Chicago Climate Exchange at the time the CCX was created. [http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/politics/3422-secrets-exposed-goldman-sachs-may-be-obamas-enron] Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs, was a Director at the Joyce Foundation [http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/staff/valerie-jarrett]

The Camco Group

The Blood and Gore team (UK-based Generation Investment Management, with chairman Al Gore and managing partner David Blood – a former CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management) has purchased almost ten percent of Camco Group [Ref. 5], which, according to the Camco website: “works closely with major companies worldwide, establishing partnerships to turn our clients’ climate change liabilities into economic, social and environmental assets.” Camco Group states: “We generate carbon credits by partnering with companies to identify, develop and manage projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Camco then arranges the sale and delivery of carbon credits to international compliance buyers and into the voluntary market.”

The Democratic National Convention Committee (DNCC) selected Camco as the Official Carbon Advisor for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, to be held August in Denver “As the Official Carbon Advisor, Camco will work with the DNCC to estimate the Convention's carbon footprint”.

(See www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/DemoNatConv.htm for more on the convention and Denver.)

Camco creates carbon credits in various parts of the world for selling to CO2 “polluters”. In a carbon credit generation program in China, Camco and Pioneer Carbon are providing “carbon financing and project development support to the Daxu community household stove replacement programme within Yanqing County, 60km from Beijing, and will have exclusive rights to the carbon credits produced.” [Ref.6] The stove, used for both cooking and heating, is specifically designed to use compressed crop waste in the form of briquettes. The project partners aim to install over 1 million of these stoves within a three-year period. (I wonder who will profit from the production of the briquettes the stove users will now need.)

Climate Change Capital

Climate Change Capital (CCC), whose slogan is 'Creating Wealth Worth Having®', is another UK-based company carbon trading company, with $1.6 billion under management. They state: “All energy markets are created by policy… Our ability to advise on and execute financial transactions in carbon constrained markets gives us a clear advantage as investment managers to raise and manage funds that generate compelling returns from growth markets such as carbon financing” [Ref.7]

CCC’s Executive Director and Vice Chairman, James Cameron, “spent much of his legal career working on climate change matters, including negotiating the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol” as a legal advisor to Greenpeace and the Alliance of Small Island States and is a “member of the board of GE Ecomagination and a member of the Copenhagen Climate Council”. His first work on global warming was a 1988 commission from Greenpeace, to advise whether the International Court of Justice could be used to bring a claim against the US for its failure to deal with climate change. He advised Greenpeace to instead argue for an international agreement on climate change “Two decades later, James Cameron is seeking to turn the business spin-offs from climate change policies into a prosperous new frontier for the corporate world.” [Ref 8] James Cameron and Maurice Strong were both on the 2000-2001 advisory council of the International Institute for Sustainable Development. [Ref.9]

IdeaCarbon

In June 2008 IDEAcarbon launched “the world’s first carbon credit ratings service”. IDEAcarbon is an independent and professional provider of ratings, research and strategic advice on carbon finance. [Ref.10]

Lord Nicholas Stern, who produced the apocalyptic “Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change” for the UK government in 2006 (which, among other extreme measures, advocated zero-emission automobiles around the world by 2050) is Vice Chairman of the IDEAglobal Group. According to the Financial Times: “Lord Nicholas Stern, author of the UK’s Stern report on climate change, will launch a new carbon credit ratings agency on Wednesday, the first to score carbon credits on a similar basis to that used to rate debt. Lord Stern, the former World Bank chief economist whose landmark report on the economics of climate change warned the world risked plunging into economic depression if action was not taken urgently on greenhouse gases, said carbon trading was a “key plank” in dealing with climate change. The agency, run by the IdeaCarbon group of which Lord Stern is vice-chairman, said it would offer investors a guide to the quality of credits and the likelihood that they would be delivered. Sellers of carbon credits would have to pay to have their products rated, while buyers would also pay to gain access to the ratings. London has maintained its dominance of the global carbon trading market, worth $64bn last year, a report to be published today by International Financial Services London, the company that promotes the City, has found” [Ref.11]

In April 2008 Stern said the United States should cut its emissions by 90 percent by 2050. [Ref.12]. "We badly underestimated the degree of damages and the risks of climate change … All of the links in the chain are on average worse than we thought a couple of years ago." [Ref.13] So it is perhaps fitting that once again, a person in the position of power to produce the official propaganda (i.e. the Stern Review) is now in the position to benefit from it.

IDEAcarbon’s Chairman is UNFCCC (United Nations Conference on Climate Change) advisor Ian Johnson, who is formerly the World Bank’s Vice President for Sustainable Development overseeing its work on climate change and carbon finance. Prior to that he “played a major role in negotiating the establishment of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and managed its day-to-day operations for six years.” [Ref.10] The GEF is an organization set up by the World Bank, the UNDP (United Nations Development Program) and the UNEP (United Nations Environment Program) in 1991 to fund adaptation to climate change. “As the financial mechanism of the UNFCCC, GEF allocates and disburses about $250 million dollars per year in projects in energy efficiency, renewable energies, and sustainable transportation. Moreover, it manages two special funds under the UNFCCC — the Least Developed Countries Fund and the Special Climate Change Fund.” [Ref.15] “Carbon trading is expected to become a $70 billion a year industry by the time the adaptation fund goes into effect in 2008. Still, garnering only 2 percent of that amount means it will fall well short of projected needs in the developing world. The Human Development Report called for $86 billion annually in new and additional financing for pro-poor adaptation.” [Ref.14]

IDEAcarbon’s Managing Director is Samuel Frankhauser, who served on the 1995, 2001 and 2007 assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He also gained hands-on experience in the design of emission reduction projects as a climate change economist for the Global Environment Facility and the World Bank. [Ref.10]

Conflicts of interest? Scam-artists? What an idea carbon appears to be.

Enron

At the turn of the 21^st century, “California experienced rolling power blackouts, moth-balled power plants that lacked nitrous oxide controls were brought back online, and their owners scrambled for nitrous emission permits for those plants and paid up to 10-fold increases for allowances. … Enron was gaming California's power market to drive power prices sky high and in turn prices for emissions permits.” [Ref.16]. The 1990 Clean Air Act amendments authorized the Environmental Protection Agency to put a cap on fossil-fuel plant NOx and SOx emissions. In the early 1990s Enron had helped establish the market for, and became the major trader in, EPA’s $20 billion-per-year sulfur-dioxide cap-and-trade program, the forerunner of today’s proposed carbon credit trade. “Enron became one of the biggest corporate boosters of the Kyoto global warming treaty, which would require huge reductions in energy use by consumers and industry. According to an internal Enron memo, quoted by The Washington Post, the Kyoto treaty would “do more to promote Enron’s business than almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring the energy and natural gas industries in Europe and the United States. … Enron became a founding member of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change’s Business Environmental Leadership Council, a leading industry front group pushing the Kyoto agenda. Enron chairman Ken Lay also served on the board of the Heinz Center for Science” [Ref.17] (The Heinz Center for Science gave NASA’s James Hansen $250,000 since he was manipulating the temperature station data via adjustments in order to promote global warming [Ref.18]) Thus, while Enron no longer exists, they live on in spirit and predicted the coming CO2 market in 1999 [Ref.19].

Related Scamming

The whole scene of credit trading is open to abuse. Numerous examples have already occurred. While being one of the fastest growing economies in the world, China receives millions of excess credit-related dollars for CO2 reduction opportunities. For example, in an article in the NY Times called “Outsize Profits and Questions in Effort to Cut Warming Gases”, a chemical factory that requires cleanup is receiving funding under the UN credit trading scheme for an incinerator that will cost $5 million. European companies are desperate for opportunities due to Kyoto: “foreign companies will pay roughly $500 million for the incinerator “ [Ref.20]. The Financial Times also reports similar abuses in an article called “China Exploiting Kyoto Loophole” [Ref.21].

Carbon credit trading is the big monetization scam growing out of the global warming hoax.

Al Gore is one of the major scammers. “In May Al Gore traveled to Tel Aviv, Israel to pick up $1 million. That’s the amount he received for winning a Dan David Foundation award for his environmental work. In his acceptance speech, Gore repeated his long-familiar sentiment, “We do face a planetary emergency.”According to Bloomberg News, Gore had less than $2 million when he left the vice presidency in 2001. Today his fortune is more than $100 million (Fast Company, July 2007)” [Ref.22]

References

[1] http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/

[2] http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/GW_History.htm

[3] http://uk.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS69488+12-Mar-2008+RNS20080312

[4] http://www.apx.com/documents/APX-on-Market-Oversight.pdf

[5] http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssEnergyNews/idUSL0490971420080604

[6] http://www.camcoglobal.com/cmsAdmin/uploads/2007_11_12_Camco_signs_innovative_China_stove_agreement.pdf

[7] http://www.climatechangecapital.com/index.asp

[8] http://www.climatechangecapital.com/uploadedFiles/AFR029FBA14JUN08.pdf

[9] http://www.iisd.org/pdf/2002/trade_ersa_en.pdf

[10] http://www.ideacarbon.com/

[11] http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/897fc1b4-4219-11dd-a5e8-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1