Page 44 - Carbon Frauds and Corruption

Corruption of Bribery

Chapter 6 : Corruption in the “Carbon World”

Four industrial gas – nitrous oxide ‐ Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) abatement projects were approved by
the UNFCCC between 2005 and 2007 under Methodology AM0021. They generate approximately 29,175,000
Certified Emission Reductions a year which at prevailing prices are valued at around €365 million per annum and
over their life to December 2012 have an estimated income of €2,190,000,000. The total cost of installing
emissions control in the four plants was less than €50 million with minimal incremental operating impacts. The
CDM incentive amounts to around $1,000 a tonne for material that costs much less to produce. It is therefore a
perverse incentive to manufacture stuff that is not wanted or to dump it in international markets below cost. This
has happened and one UK rival was forced to close down because it could not compete. American competitors
(again not qualifying from CDM largesse) are badly hit by CDM subsidies, but do they complain? What do you
think? And if not, why not?

Even the most supportive believers recognise that these “industrial gas” projects are a sham,
create perverse incentives to maximise emissions and do nothing to save the planet. The money
thrown down the drain is probably in excess of €14 billion between 2008 and 2012. The EU was
minded to scrap them for compliance purposes after December 2012. But do you think this will
happen?

6 RISK FACTORS IN THE CARBON WORLD

6.1 Overview
46
For better or worse, many of the world’s politicians‐ possibly driven by ego and with eyes to
their “legacy” have set a course to mitigate “global warming” and companies have to deal with
the consequences.

It is beyond the scope of this book to even guess what the eventual outcome of climate
mitigation might be and how history will view the raft of current leaders: as heroes or cretins,
saints or charlatans? . This Chapter is only concerned with the shorter‐term objectives of
controlling fraud and corruption in the “Carbon World”.

6.2 Linkage Between Fraud and Corruption
There is a close connection between fraud and corruption in the “Carbon World”

46 But by no means all

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