Page 36 - Carbon Frauds and Corruption

Corruption of Bribery

Chapter 6 : Corruption in the “Carbon World”

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Nothing much happened on “global warming ” until the IPCC’s much more dramatic and
deliberately “scary” Second Assessment Report (SAR) which included the iconic “Hockey Stick”
hit the stands in 1995. This was considered at a meeting in Kyoto, Japan that really got things
moving.

5.2 The Kyoto Protocol
5.2.1 The Basics

In 1997 some 175 countries agreed – under the Kyoto Protocol ‐ to work together, under legally
binding agreements ‐to reduce worldwide greenhouse gas emissions initially by 5.2% over 1990
levels and then on more ambitious trajectories. The protocol required ratification by at least 55%
of the largest emitting industrialised nations.

As France’s then President Jacques Chiriac said the protocol was “the first component of authentic
global governance”.

Kyoto defined “greenhouse gases” as follows:

 Carbon dioxide (CO2)
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 Methane (CH4) has an equivalent of 21 times that of carbon dioxide
 Nitrous oxide (N2O) has a CO2 equivalent of 310 times
 Hydro fluorocarbons (HFCs) has a CO2 equivalent of between 150 and 11,700 times
 Perfluorocarbons (PFCs) has a CO2 equivalent of between 6000 509,200 times
 Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) has a CO2 equivalent of around 23,900 times

Thus reducing one tonne of HFC emissions results in 11,700 “carbon credits”

Under the protocol, and later the Marrakesh Accords, the World was divided into two groups:

 Thirty eight developed, or industrial, countries were listed on Annex 1 and the were
required to enter into binding obligations to reduce “greenhouse gases” – and especially
carbon dioxide emissions on an agreed trajectory with the first phase running to
December 2012 (known as the “Kyoto Period”)
 The remaining countries – unsurprisingly referred to as “Non‐Annex 1 countries”,
including China, India, Brazil and Korea ‐ were unfettered by specific targets but, in a
vague, roundabout, non‐specific sort of way, agreed to do their best, subject to this not
holding back their own industrial development

China currently opens a new coal fired generating plant every five days

30 It is worth noting that between 1895 and 1932 the consensus worry was global cooling: between 1929 and 1969 on
warming; between 1954 and 1976 back to cooling and from 1981 returned to warming
31 Based on IPCC “equivalents”

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the Carbon World for Gower.docx | A SHORT HISTORY OF GLOBAL COOLING
Warming