I received what follows from my engineer friend. You can’t make this stuff up.
Thirteen years after implementing the 1997 Kyoto climate treaty and 23 years after implementation of the 1987 Montreal Protocol, the UN is getting around to kinda sorta looking into apparent abuses that have resulted in siphoning off billions of dollars from “rich” nations and into the coffers of “poor” nations, like China. It all revolves around the concept that those who behave responsibly, have a responsibility to pay those who behave irresponsibly.In this case, the United Nations’ Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has been paying chemical manufacturers in such places as China, India, and Mexico the tidy sum of $100,000/ton to destroy the ozone unfriendly refrigerant HFC-23 (no longer produced in the US) out of a fund established to pay for carbon offset credits. What could possibly be wrong with that, you ask?
But that gas [HFC-23] is a byproduct of an ozone-friendly refrigerant, HCFC-22, which those chemical makers also are paid to produce under the U.N.’s ozone treaty. Environmentalists say there is so much money in getting rid of HFC-23 that the chemical makers are overproducing HCFC-22 to have more of the byproduct to destroy.“The evidence is overwhelming that manufacturers are creating excess HFC-23 simply to destroy it and earn carbon credits,” said Mark Roberts of the Environmental Investigation Agency, a research and advocacy group. “This is the biggest environmental scandal in history and makes an absolute mockery of international efforts to combat climate change.”"
Kind of makes you wonder why anyone would be opposed to cap and trade.
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Anyone surprised? Behave good you get screwed behave bad you get rewarded. Sounds like what’s happening with payments to fisherman in the gulf. Thanks SOS
SOS, where do you FIND this stuff? This is pure gold…
Things like this happen when there is a lack of oversight and greedy people, someone figures out a way to beat the system, the same thing that happened to our economy.
I think the point is that the UN is deliberately and knowingly funding these boondoggles as a means of redistributing money from rich to supposedly poor countries (I don’t find China, India and Mexico to be particularly destitute, the bulk of its poverty coming from poor government leadership). When the UN isn’t corrupt, it is propping up dictatorships and other malevolent governments (see the members of the “human rights” commission for starters).
As for “the concept that those who behave responsibly, have a responsibility to pay those who behave irresponsibly”, one can hardly accuse the aformentioned countries of being paragons of environmental virtue.
Given its track record, I seriously believe that the UN epitomizes the very worst of all the governments of the world, under the aegis of global harmony and fellowship.
I think it is time to reclaim some valuable real estate in NYC.