Another Corporate Farce

As the world gears up for the next round of United Nations climate-change negotiations in Durban, South Africa, in November, evidence has emerged that a cornerstone of the existing global climate agreement, the international greenhouse-gas emissions-trading system, is seriously flawed.

Critics have long questioned the usefulness of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which was established under the Kyoto Protocol. It allows rich countries to offset some of their carbon emissions by investing in climate-friendly projects, such as hydroelectric power and wind farms, in developing countries. Verified projects earn certified emission reductions (CERs) — carbon credits that can be bought and sold, and count towards meeting rich nations' carbon-reduction targets.

But a diplomatic cable published last month by the WikiLeaks website reveals that most of the CDM projects in India should not have been certified because they did not reduce emissions beyond those that would have been achieved without foreign investment. Indian officials have apparently known about the problem for at least two years.

"What has leaked just confirms our view that in its present form the CDM is basically a farce," says Eva Filzmoser, programme director of CDM Watch, a Brussels-based watchdog organization. The revelations imply that millions of tonnes of claimed reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions are mere phantoms, she says, and potentially cast doubt over the principle of carbon trading. "In the face of these comments it is no wonder that the United States has backed away from emission trading," Filzmoser says.
~ from Carbon-Credits System Tarnished by WikiLeaks Revelation by Quirin Schiermeier ~

For anyone paying attention, it should be more than obvious by now that corporatists don't agree to any scheme or regulation that have any teeth in them. Put a different way, if the corporatists sign off on something, then it almost always represents a farce!

In the case of supposed carbon trading, corporations are claiming credit where credit has not been earned. What this means is that they have continued on with "business as usual" -- wracking up mega profits while doing next too nothing to favor the environment. Yet, while they continue to abuse Mother Earth with abandon, they score fictitious brownie points to make them look good in the public sphere.

One of the points that Lao Tzu drives home again and again has to do with connivance, to cooperate secretly in an illegal or wrongful action. Connivance is a corollary of greed. The root of both is selfish desire. In this case, it involves placing the desire for unmitigated riches for the few against the health and safety of the vast majority and the planet itself.