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Climate Treaty Reparations would cost $50-$200bn per year
The American Thinker ^ | December 8, 2009 | Howard Richman & Raymond Richman

Posted on 12/08/2009 10:36:12 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

Here's a quiz. What's the worst thing on the table at the UN Climate Control Conference in Copenhagen December 7-18? If you guessed cap-and-tax, you would be wrong. The reparations could be much, much worse.

The draft of the treaty encompasses 181 pages and recites that it shall be the obligation of the developed countries (Europe, United States, Japan, Australia, etc.) to pay the developing countries (China, India, Africa, etc.) huge reparations, annual sums to erase poverty and to share technology with them. Australian lawyer Janet Albrechtsen explains the most recent draft of the treaty:

Clause after complicated clause sets out the requirement that developed countries such as Australia pay their "adaptation debt" to developing countries. Clause 33 on page 39 says that by 2020 the scale of financial flows to support adaptation in developing countries must be at least $US67 billion ($73bn), or in the range of $US70bn to $US140bn a year.

How developed countries will pay is far from clear. The draft text sets out various alternatives, including Option 7 on page 135, which provides for "a (global) levy of 2 per cent on international financial market (monetary) transactions to Annex I Parties". This means industrialized countries such as Australia, if we sign.

In the behind-the-scenes negotiations, the developed countries have already agreed to pay $167 billion per year, but the developing countries are holding out for $400 billion per year according to BusinessGreen.com:

Developing nations ... are insisting on a minimum of £242bn [$400 billion] per annum by 2020 to help them fight global warming, compared with the developed world's offer of only £100bn [$167 billion] per year.

It is not clear what share will come from the United States. But based upon the totals cited by BusinessGreen, it safely can be assumed that Obama will volunteer somewhere between $50 and $200 billion per year by 2020 as the U.S. share.

The treaty has been complicated by the "climategate" scandal which gives additional evidence of the unscientific behavior of the proponents of reducing carbon dioxide emissions, the backbone of the treaty.

The scientific consensus that once backed the man-made global warming theory has disappeared, and a new theory, based upon cosmic rays and solar activity, is proving to be much more predictive of climate change, with carbon dioxide playing a minor role if any. If the science backing the treaty is wrong, we shall discover in 10 to 50 years that the world community has wasted tens of trillions of dollars.

Moreover, the distribution of the benefits and costs of global warming is very uncertain. Global warming would benefit colder countries while harming coastal countries. And carbon dioxide is, in general, a great help to plant life and agricultural production.

The costs of the treaty, however, are far clearer. The largest share of the burden would be borne by the United States. Students of history may remember that the reparations forced upon Germany by the victors of World War I, resulted in hyperinflation, destroyed the German middle class, and eventually brought Adolf Hitler to power, causing World War II. Economist John Maynard Keynes predicted this disaster at the time. In a 1919 paper ("The Capacity of Germany to Pay Reparations") he correctly predicted:

The policy of reducing Germany to servitude for a generation, of degrading the lives of millions of human beings, and of depriving a whole nation of happiness should be abhorrent and detestable -- abhorrent and detestable, even if it were possible, even if it enriched ourselves, even if it did not sow the decay of the whole civilized life of Europe....

Keynes was arguing that Germany would not be able to pay the reparations because it would not have the surplus of exports over imports necessary to pay for them. Germany had had an excess of imports in the years just before World War I, not an excess of exports. Not only that, but it had lost raw materials resources in the peace treaty that were needed for its iron goods exports, and its merchant marine and manpower had just been decimated by the war. Keynes was simply pointing out that Germany could not afford to pay the reparations.

America is in a similar position. We have had a huge and growing excess of imports over exports for more than a decade. Our manufacturing exports have already been decimated by the currency manipulations of developing countries and by their policies of keeping out American products through one pretext or another. For example, both China and India have labeled their automobile sectors as "strategic sectors" so that they could keep out American produced vehicles through the high tariffs permitted by WTO rules. Using this pretext, China also applies tariffs to American auto parts, motorcycles, and mining machinery.

China will continue to manipulate the dollar-yuan exchange rate to ensure that new solar panel and windmill factories will be located in China and not the United States. They have already ensured that Chinese-made windmills and solar panels will not contain many American-made parts.

Basically what this treaty proposes is that the United States go ever further in debt to China, selling China our remaining assets, so that we can pay reparations to the developing countries, so that they can afford to buy windmills and solar panels from China.

The result would greatly accelerate the present trends. We would become a nation unable to get out of debt, even with the falling dollar. We would stop being an "ownership society" and become, in the words of Warren Buffett, a "sharecropper society."

President Obama will pull out all of the stops to get the treaty negotiated in Copenhagen next week and ratified in 2010 by the U.S. Senate. He knows that time is against him. Given time, more and more Americans will discover the new scientific realities. Moreover, his huge Democratic Party majority in the Senate will likely disappear in November 2010, and he may never again get another chance to get the two-thirds vote needed to ratify it.

*******

The authors maintain a blog at tradeandtaxes.blogspot.com, and co-authored the 2008 book, Trading Away Our Future: How to Fix Our Government-Driven Trade Deficits and Faulty Tax System Before it's Too Late, published by Ideal Taxes Association.


TOPICS: Breaking News; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: agw; antiamericanism; china; climaquiddick; climatechange; climatechangedata; climategate; copenhagen; envirofascism; globaltaxation; globalwarming; globalwarminghoax; globalwarmingscandal; gorebullwarming; hoax; hopenhagen; obama; redistribution; starkravingsocialism; taxes; theft
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Are you half as mad as I am?
1 posted on 12/08/2009 10:36:12 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet; livius; DollyCali; According2RecentPollsAirIsGood; Thunder90; Little Bill; ...
 




Beam me to Planet Gore !

2 posted on 12/08/2009 10:37:41 AM PST by steelyourfaith (Time to prosecute Al Gore now that fellow scam artist Bernie Madoff is in stir.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Sure give money to China, a country which in the next 25 yeasr is likely to show respect for the environment by nuking our cities.


3 posted on 12/08/2009 10:38:11 AM PST by Williams (It's the policies, stupid)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I’m not sure that “mad” is strong enough, but then again the words I want to use would likely have my comment pulled.


4 posted on 12/08/2009 10:38:35 AM PST by rarestia (Confutatis maledictis, voca me cum benedictis)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Pitchforks and torches wouldn’t be enough.


5 posted on 12/08/2009 10:40:01 AM PST by datura ("Against all enemies, both foreign and domestic")
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

No just no but HELL NO!


6 posted on 12/08/2009 10:44:07 AM PST by Drill Thrawl (Another day, another injury, another step closer.)
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To: datura
Besides this being outright criminal and theft beyond imagination, haven't we learned anything from our folly of spending $15T on poverty here in the US? What have we gotten but a more illegitimate populace, more ignorance and more crime? We are insane to be within the same solar system as these third world cheats. Will someone please grow a pair in congress and tell Obama and his goons that we're done playing nice?
7 posted on 12/08/2009 10:45:29 AM PST by dumpthelibs (dumpthelibs)
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To: steelyourfaith

Does anyone remember “El Nino” and “La Nina,” the weather phenomenon that comes every four years and changes weather patterns drastically for a while? All this time we could have been experiencing that and would easily explain the bizarre weather patterns that we’ve had in the past couple of years.


8 posted on 12/08/2009 10:46:34 AM PST by Niuhuru (The Internet is the digital AIDS; adapting and successfully destroying the MSM host.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Check out what they will TAX or outlaw.

Carbon Dioxide:
Inorganic compound, a colourless gas with a faint, sharp odour and a sour taste when dissolved in water, chemical formula CO2. Constituting about 0.03% of air by volume, it is produced when carbon-containing materials burn completely, and it is a product of fermentation and animal respiration. Plants use CO2 in photosynthesis to make carbohydrates. CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere keeps some of the Sun’s energy from radiating back into space (see greenhouse effect). In water, CO2 forms a solution of a weak acid, carbonic acid (H2CO3). The reaction of CO2 and ammonia is the first step in synthesizing urea. An important industrial material, CO2 is recovered from sources including flue gases, limekilns, and the process that prepares hydrogen for synthesis of ammonia. It is used as a refrigerant, a chemical intermediate, and an inert atmosphere; in fire extinguishers, foam rubber and plastics, carbonated beverages (see carbonation), and aerosol sprays; in water treatment, welding, and cloud seeding; and for promoting plant growth in greenhouses. Under pressure it becomes a liquid, the form most often used in industry. If the liquid is allowed to expand, it cools and partially freezes to the solid form, dry ice.
For more information on carbon dioxide, visit Britannica.com.


9 posted on 12/08/2009 10:49:37 AM PST by Marty62 (former Marty60)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

So Western business will be forking over money to to support their competition in the “developing” world.


10 posted on 12/08/2009 10:54:20 AM PST by Tzimisce (No thanks. We have enough government already. - The Tick)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

what is it up to now with ObamaCare 7 trillion? And now this and a global tax? We need to impeach this SOB and stop wishing another political candidate will save us in three years.


11 posted on 12/08/2009 10:55:59 AM PST by Dubya-M-DeesWent2SyriaStupid!
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

buggy whip reparations

typewriter maker reparations

horse buggy maker reparations

horse saddle maker reparations

HAT MAKER reparations....

four element based physics professor reparations


12 posted on 12/08/2009 11:04:33 AM PST by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Tear up your pillows, we’re going to need the pillows for the tar and feathering.


13 posted on 12/08/2009 11:09:32 AM PST by MizSterious (Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm? John Page, 1744-1808)
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To: rarestia

You’d be surprised at what you can get away with where Herr Obama is concerned. We’re all on the same wavelength here.


14 posted on 12/08/2009 11:11:35 AM PST by Soothesayer9
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To: MizSterious

We’re gonna have lots of nekked chickens.


15 posted on 12/08/2009 11:11:55 AM PST by MARTIAL MONK (I'm waiting for the POP!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

NFW! Any idiot voting for this BS needs to be arrested and put away for life.


16 posted on 12/08/2009 11:18:17 AM PST by soycd
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

WE would pay CHINA?!? China, the biggest CO2 producer in the world?


17 posted on 12/08/2009 11:52:00 AM PST by Uncle Miltie (America, 1776 - 2009. R.I.P.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I am praying that this becomes 0bama’s “Treaty of Versailles.” He won’t fight for a thing for the US at this conference, he’ll agree to give away the store. But back in the US, he won’t be able to sell 67 Senators on ratifying this turd during an election year, and the treaty dies unratified in the Senate.

As for what happened to Wilson when the Versailles treaty died, I will not pray for. That is in God’s hands in His infinite wisdom.


18 posted on 12/08/2009 11:53:03 AM PST by henkster (0bamanomics: The "Final Solution" to America's "Prosperity Question.")
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Chump change to this crew...... /s


19 posted on 12/08/2009 12:12:47 PM PST by b4its2late (Before you can control a horse, you have to break it. Sound familiar?)
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To: b4its2late

This is just the downpayment to these Marxists. It is a looting of the West.


20 posted on 12/08/2009 12:17:43 PM PST by a fool in paradise (Question authority!Who is the University of East Anglia to drive the 'Global Climate Change' agenda?)
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