Final Report from Cancun - COP 16

From Cathie Adams
December 11, 2010

U.N. Agrees on a Process to Design the Global Taxing Scheme

Cancun, Mexico’s record-setting low temperature during the “global warming” conference did not cool the “hot air” at the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, Conference of the Parties 16.

At 5:18 a.m. on Saturday, December 11, Mexican President Felipe Calderón proclaimed the meeting a success and announced next year’s confab in Durban, South Africa. That meeting will be another step on their way to a “legally-binding” document they hope to produce in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2012, a.k.a. Rio+20 signifying 20 years since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio.

Key elements of the Cancun Agreement include:

• President Obama’s commitment in Copenhagen last year to reduce greenhouse gases by 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 is now officially recognized by the U.N. The U.S. is to create a low-carbon development plan and strategy, and assess how they plan to meet them, including through market mechanisms, then to report their inventories annually to the U.N. It is incredulous for the U.N. to demand that a sovereign nation pass laws to fit the U.N.’s political agenda, but that is essentially what they did! In light of the November 2nd elections, “cap & trade/tax” legislation that would destroy the American economy while having a negligible impact on the environment, is unlikely to pass. But we must remain vigilant concerning the president’s abuse of Executive Orders and the Environmental Protection Agency to implement the unscientific radical environmental agenda.

• Poor countries’ actions to reduce emissions will also be officially recognized by the U.N. and a registry will be set up to record and match developing country mitigation actions to finance and technology support from rich countries. Poor countries must publish progress reports every two years.

• Parties meeting under the Kyoto Protocol (the U.S. is not a party) must continue negotiations with the aim of completing their work and ensuring there is no gap between the first and second commitment periods of the treaty. The Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanisms were strengthened to drive more major investments and technologies to the developing world.

* A set of new initiatives and institutions were launched to deploy money and technology for poor countries to plan and build their own sustainable futures.

* Added to the Cancun Agreement are the $30 billion Fast Start Fund by 2012 and the $100 billion annual Green Fund by 2020 that President Obama committed to last year in Copenhagen.

* A process was established to design the $100 billion Green Climate Fund under the Conference of the Parties, with a board that equally represents rich and poor countries. The design will probably be for a tax on international shipping and aviation.

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