Report from Lima: U.S. is Deeply Involved in Climate Change Treaty

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change treaty has been profoundly important to Americans ever since it was signed by former President George H.W. Bush and ratified by the Senate in 1992.

Under the UNFCCC, a new treaty is being negotiated in Lima, Peru to cap and tax greenhouse gas emissions that are emitted when fossil fuels are burned to produce America’s energy that maintains our enviable standard of living. The Lima draft is to be completed at the UNFCCC’s meeting in Paris, France late next year. The  plan is for a new legally binding treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol that was never ratified by the U.S. Senate.

The treaty’s purpose was candidly stated by the UNFCCC’s Executive Director Christiana Figueres two years ago in Doha, Qatar: “What is occurring here, not just in Doha, but in the whole climate change process is the complete transformation of the economic structure of the world. It should happen much quicker, but it cannot happen overnight.” The carrot is wealth redistribution and and stick is climate change.

Figueres has also made it clear that she prefers totalitarian ways for the “complete transformation,” rather than a democratic process. Last January she agonized that, “The political divide in the U.S. Congress has slowed efforts to pass climate legislation and is ‘very detrimental’ to the fight against global warming. China, the top emitter of greenhouse gases, is also the country that’s ‘doing it right’ when it comes to addressing global warming.” She added, “China is also able to implement policies because its political system avoids some of the legislative hurdles seen in countries including the U.S.”

At all UNFCCC meetings, non-governmental organization’s like the Climate Action Network International play the key role of professional agitators. In Lima, CAN is hosting daily press conferences calling for “adequate and fair contributions with a science based equity review.” It is still unclear exactly what that means, except that observers expect NGOs to throw everything at the wall hoping something will stick. CAN is planning a protest to pressure delegates to include the language in the 2015 Paris treaty.

One way to achieve “adequate and fair contributions with a science based equity review” and to reach the Green Climate Fund’s goal of $100 billion annually, the UN is calling on governments to transfer all subsidies from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. Those billions of dollars would be inadequate and it is already calling for trillions of dollars to completely transform “the economic structure of the world.” The UN ignores the dozens of solar company bankruptcies and the fact that solar is not a dependable or adequate energy source. Windmills aren’t efficient either and wouldn’t exist in the U.S. without federal subsidies.

Regardless, the NGOs’ utopian claim is that, “The money to finance a cleaner, fairer low carbon future is out there. But as long as rich countries continue to subsidize dirty energy expansion and fail to adequately support climate vulnerable countries, trust and progress at the UN climate negotiations will wane.”

The U.S. delegation didn’t show up for their only scheduled press conference this week, but have a meeting scheduled for next Monday. We already know that the further the Obama administration moves in the extreme direction, it gives license to the NGOs to demand even more. Obama’s  premature commitment for a 28% reduction of greenhouse gases below 2005 levels by 2025 put blood in the water, which will make negotiations most interesting next week.