Copenhagen: Environmental Munich

Copenhagen: Environmental Munich




By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, March 27, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Climate: Czech President Vaclav Klaus once called global warming a new religion, a Trojan horse for imposing a global tyranny worse than communism. Details about the Copenhagen Conference prove how right he was.


The first of three marathon negotiating sessions designed to hammer out the details of the Copenhagen Accord on climate change to be signed in December began on Sunday, March 29, in Bonn, Germany. From what we know, it will be a surrender to tyranny as significant as another negotiated 71 years ago.

A 16-page informational note obtained by Fox News outlines the goals and agenda of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a body paving the way to Copenhagen with good intentions. Behind this alphabet soup is a list of ideas and talking points for what the U.N. calls an "ambitious and effective international response to climate change."

We're not sure how effective it will be, but it's certainly ambitious as it seeks to reorder the world economy in a de facto repeal of the Industrial Revolution. Under the supervision of the U.N., free trade would die, industries that survived could be relocated across borders, and we would have mandatory carbon offsets and cap-and-trade imposed on a global scale.

Part of the "framework" of this new and more draconian Kyoto pact is a new kind of tariff known as a "border carbon adjustment" that the note describes as "a levy on imported goods equal to that which would have been imposed had they been produced domestically." In other words, if the exporting country does not impose a carbon tax, the importing country will.

Another form of "adjustment" is to require exporters to "buy (carbon) offsets at the border equal to that which the producer would have been forced to purchase had the goods been produced domestically." Imagine the U.N. forcing American exporters to buy carbon offsets.

Under this global climate regime, tariffs would be allowed "as protective barriers to shelter producers of climate-friendly goods." The note endorses subsidies for producers of goods that are deemed "environmentally sound." Protection goes green. Who knew Mr. Smoot and Mr. Hawley were environmentalists?

The document speaks of a "climate change levy" on maritime shipping and aviation that is certain to devastate foreign trade and tourism. The American aviation industry had revenues of $208 billion in 2008. Unless we can come up with a hybrid 747 real quick, there's trouble ahead.

There is talk of signatories implementing cap-and-trade policies that the note admits "would involve negative consequences for the implementing country." Such policies "may induce some industrial relocation . . . to less-regulated host countries." Gee, ya think?

The Obama administration supports a domestic cap-and-trade policy and included it in its deficit-creating budget proposal. As we've noted, cap and trade, through its limit on total carbon emissions, is really a cap on economic growth. An analysis by the George C. Marshall Institute estimates GDP losses of as much as 3% in 2015 and as much as 10% in 2050 as a result of this measure

The effect of this accord if we participate is incalculable. According to the Department of Energy, roughly 72% of U.S. electrical power generation in 2007 was derived from burning fossil fuels. Some 6% came from hydropower and less than 3% came from solar, wind and "other" sources.

Writing in the Financial Times recently, Czech President Vaclav Klaus said: "As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not communism."

Klaus told the Cato Institute recently that "environmentalism is a religion" that accepts global warming on faith and seeks to exploit it to reshape the world and economic social order.

Its commandments are now being written. The U.N. will be its temple and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon its high priest.


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