DAVID ROTHBARD & CRAIG RUCKER - The Washington Times

As the United Nations wrapped up its recent climate conference in Bonn, talks organizer Christiana Figueres proclaimed that climate change is the “the most important negotiation the world has ever faced.” Faced with real problems – financial meltdowns, unemployment, war and genuine human suffering – the world no longer agrees.

It’s a good thing human productivity doesn’t threaten the global thermostat the way the U.N. would have us believe. If it did, we’d be cooked. Countries rich and poor are backing away from commitments they made years ago during rosier economic times, before the public became aware of Climategate, renewable energy costs and genuine debate.

The Kyoto Protocol, the only binding international agreement signed since the global warming scare began, expires after 2012. Canada, Russia and Japan have declared they will not renew; China and the United States never signed it, and the U.S. has made it plain it is not about to. And poor countries are becoming less enamored about signing on, as they realize hard economic times mean there will be little climate “mitigation” and “restitution” money coming their way from (formerly) rich countries.

Even die-hard warmists increasingly recognize that bureaucratic solutions hatched at these conferences are rife with waste, fraud and abuse. They may enrich a few, but they are powerless to control Earth’s climate.

In March, German investigators reported that 850 million euros disappeared when shady companies swarmed into carbon trading, emissions and energy businesses.Criminal enterprises raked in tens of millions, fended off regulators with delaying tactics and then announced bankruptcy or vanished. An Italian sting operation resulted in arrests of wind-farm developers who billed the country for subsidies but never produced a kilowatt of electricity.

London’s liberal Guardian newspaper was aghast to learn that the World Bank’s Biocarbon Fund had arranged to pay European “entrepreneurs” $1 million to establish a system under which 60,000 Kenyans would restrict themselves to farming under rigidly controlled, inefficient, “sustainable” techniques. For that they will receive $1.4 million over 20 years.

That’s right, the beneficent World Bank will enrich more Europeans so 60,000 Kenyans can receive $23.83 apiece for 20 years of drudgery, poverty and misery – a princely $1.19 a year.

Even the European Union finally understands how little bureaucracy and energy deprivation dictates the climate. “It is not enough for the EU to simply sign up for another commitment period,” EU climate representative Jurgen Lefevere admitted. “We only represent 11 percent of global emissions.”

Burning fossil fuels contributes only a fraction of total annual atmospheric carbon dioxide buildup, and the EU contributes just 11 percent of that. The EU’s commitment to slashing CO2 emissions by 20 percent invites corruption, has no control over Chinese or Indian emissions and has no effect on the climate.

The biggest divide evident in Bonn was between the United States and large emerging economies. Even Obama administration officials who are thoroughly committed to man-made global warming catastrophe claims finally recognize the fraud problem. In Bonn, the U.S. insisted that all countries subject their emission reduction claims to verification.

However, China will accept only an agreement that lacks verification – and guarantees the right to cheat. Meanwhile, the Chinese are happy to be “the world’s leader” in manufacturing wind turbines – 95 percent – which they gladly sell to guilt-ridden Western countries.

China and other nations support the notion that prosperous countries owe the world restitution for the “sin” of engaging in the Industrial Revolution and becoming prosperous. We can only hope some nation’s representative will have the courage to remind China and its fellow climate travelers that the West never forced them to spend 50 years mired in communism, bureaucracy and stagnation.

While it is encouraging that the global warming camp no longer has things entirely its own way, celebration would be premature. For all the gnashing of teeth and complaining about corporate influence we hear from global warming bureaucrats and campaigners, the truth is that, today, the warmists are the establishment.

Billions are being redistributed to researchers, developing nations, carbon speculators, alternative energy investors and other carbon profiteers – who would like to turn billions into trillions. Pity the poor carbon traders whose markets expire with Kyoto. Not all have their villa in the sun yet.

But rest assured, they will do whatever is necessary to get theirs. Big Warming will not surrender its hold on Western taxpayers without a fight.

The warmist camp plans to retake the initiative at the December U.N. conference in Durban, South Africa. It intends to turn back the clock to the time when the media would attribute any weather or nature event to global warming, without question or critical examination. Al Gore’s recent RollingStone diatribe essentially calls on the media to censure climate disaster skeptics and adopt a one-sided man-made warming narrative.

The NewYorkTimes may go along, but the huge and growing alternative media will not. This week’s Heartland Institute international conference of climate-alarm skeptics in Washington will only reinforce the lack of evidence for man-made Armageddon, and the disastrous consequences of staying the current U.N. course.

Many believe the last-minute appearance by dozens of world leaders crippled the Copenhagen climate conference. But with the big names absent from Cancun, Mexico, and now Bonn, the U.N. wants them back.

Ms. Figueres capped the Bonn conference with a call for “high-level political attention.” If she succeeds, just imagine the mischief a gathering of heads of state, foreign ministers, bureaucrats, researchers, green campaigners and carbon profiteers can do at an African beach resort.

Then imagine how nearly impossible it will be to repair the harm they inflict. Action must be taken to avert such a result.

David Rothbard is president of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow. Craig Rucker is CFACT’s executive director.

CARLO STAGNARO

In George Orwell’s masterpiece, 1984, one slogan of the party dominating Britain was: “Ignorance Is Strength.”

It actually meant that the ignorance of the people is the strength of the government: if people do not know things, or do not have the information to make informed decisions, they are like subjects, not free citizens.

Something akin to this is going on in the European Union (EU) on the energy front. Energy is an active are of EU public policy. Yet authorities are not revealing information (data is surely has) that is crucial to determine whether its policies are distorting the market and come at too high a cost to society.

High-Sounding Aims

The website of Eurostat – the European Union’s statistical office – sells itself as “your key to European statistics.” The EU also created an ad-hoc website, www.energy.eu, in order to provide “your trusted source for past, present and projected Energy Prices and Statistics.”

While words are sweet, the implementation of the goals is far from perfect. In fact, several key statistics are not available–not even commercially–especially with regard to energy issues.

This is a major fault in Europe’s credibility in advancing its policy goals, as well as a serious limitation to the accountability of the policy making process, because it prevents, or makes it much harder, to double check the rationale, the numbers, and the declared outcomes of the EU’s policies.

Ironically, Eurostat is hosting a major conference on “Statistics for policymaking: Europe 2020”. Many interesting issues will be debated, but apparently the conference will fail to deal with the most important one: how can we evaluate policies, if we are not provided the relevant data to do so?

My Experience

I have been feeling uncomfortable with the quality of statistical information provided by Europe’s statistical office, as well as by my own country’s statistical office, for a long time, but in the last few months I have had serious problems.

A few months ago, together with Luciano Lavecchia, I authored a paper on green jobs creation in Italy (that we also discussed here at MasterResource).

MORE AT MASTER RESOURCE

The EU Structural Funds are enormous. Maybe they contribute to something good, but mostly – slightly admitted by everyone in the game – they are a feast for vested interests.

One of the pet projects for the distributors is renewable energy projects, something the journalist Angus Stickler sheds some light on:

“The most strikingcase is that the development of wind power stations on the Mediterranean island of Sicily, home of the notorious mafia clan Cosa Nostra.  A few weeks ago the Italian authorities seized the assets of the record sum of 1.5 billion euros. The police had uncovered an elaborate case of embezzlement and money laundering by an EU-funded project on renewable energy sources. A crime boss who recently defected described it as ‘easy pennies’ or ‘comfortable money’.”

There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with any form of energy production, be it fossil, nuclear, solar, wind or whatever you can come up with. As long as you follow the rules. These, hopefully most people would agree on, are that you don’t pollute (or at least ask first), take proper precautions and don’t steel any form of property. And that includes the money the Europeans pay in taxes.

As far as I’m concerned, you can try to pedal your house warm. But please don’t ask me to sponsor your bike.

It ought to be added that the fight against the mob on Cicily has been rather successful in recent years. The entire island is a dream of marvelous views and meals that, literally, tempts you to stay at the table from lunch until bedtime. Sounds like a waste to send in “comfortable money” to the bad guys.

Carlo Stagnaro of Istituto Bruno Leoni reports:

The Italian Senate stands for climate realism. A motion passed on last Wednesday commits the Italian government to promote a sound discussion on climate policies with the European Union and the United Nations, with particular regard to the major changes that have occurred after the economic recession, the Climategate scandal, and the failure to reach a global deal in Copenhagen. In fact, the Senate asks both that the current commitments under the EU climate and energy package are re-negotiated, and that an independent investigation is started on the IPCC process.

The motion presented by Senators Antonio D’Alì (chairman of the Environment Committee) and Guido Possa (chairman of the University and Education Committee) as well as many other center-right colleagues, asks the government, among the other things:

• To call for an independent investigation into the IPCC methods used to review scientific literature on climate change, as well as on its governance and its officials;

• To set up a new governance for IPCC, in order to turn it into a truly scientific body, rather than a mostly political one;

• To review the consequences of the EU’s so-called “20-20-20” agenda, that calls for 20% emissions cuts, 20% more energy efficiency, and 20% renewables by 2020, as well as to obtain assurance that the targets will not be made more stringent (i.e., the emissions reduction target will not be raised up to 30% below 1990 levels);

• To prioritize the EU and UN policies with respect to more urgent environmental challenges, such as air and water pollution, waste management, etc.

The motion is unlikely to have practical consequences, however, because – under Italian law – the government may or may not take into account the message it received from the Senate. When asked about its opinion on the motion, the government said it had no opinion, so majority senators were left free to vote according to their own judgment. Regrettably, Environmental Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo didn’t participate the debate in the Senate: that gave a chance to Sen. Roberto Della Seta, who spoke on behalf of the Democratic Party and voted against the motion, to blame the executive’s behavior.

Despite the lack of practical consequences at EU and UN levels, the motion still makes a lot of political sense, especially if it is considered that last year a similar motion was also passed, calling for a more balanced approach to the scientific aspects and uncertainties of climate change. With the exception of the Czech Republic’s President, Vaclav Klaus, this is probably the only case of a relevant institution in a European member State that challenges the “consensus” on climate policies. Obviously, this is also an important signal about the high discontent of Italian businesses about a package of EU directives that they believe, with good reason, are punitive towards the Italian economy.

In fact, thanks to its reliance on natural gas that covers around 60% of the electricity generation, the country is among the least carbon-intensive countries in Europe, and yet it has to meet goals that are comparable with those of other, more carbon-intensive countries.

But that is only part of the story. What is more relevant is that an intense debate about climate change and the alleged solutions to temperature increase has been going on in Italy in the last few years, that led several policy-makers and other stakeholders to endorse non-alarmist, if not openly skeptic, positions with regard to climate policies.

What is interesting is that the primary reason for this is not skepticism on global warming per se, even though many recognize that there are more things in heaven and earth than in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. What drove a growing number of people, and not just in the center-right coalition, to become dubious about the EU road to climate serfdom is the acknowledgment that the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and the other political tools aimed at cutting emissions would produce negligible environmental benefits, if any. However, they would have a significant cost for the Italian economy, and – even more concerning – they entail a major restructuring of the EU structure, with the creation of an ad hoc bureaucracy that has a vested interest in keeping the alarms on, instead of promoting a fair assessment of costs and benefits of the proposed policies.

From this point of view, the major achievement from the motion by Senators D’Alì, Possa – and others – is to remind the government and the Italian public in general that there are still people that raise rational arguments before they endorse costly policies. Implicit in the motion – and explicit in D’Alì and Possa’s thinking – is a concern for the lack of a democratic debate on the EU energy and climate package. In fact the Italian Parliament, as well as other Parliaments of the EU member states, never had a chance to discuss the consequences of such a wide-ranging, costly, questionable policy. If the Italian Senate’s vote may help to raise the awareness of the dangers not just for the European economy, but also for the democratic process in the European Union, it will strike a much more ambitious goal than cutting emissions by a few percentage points.

Carlo Stagnaro is Research Director of the Italian think tank Istituto Bruno Leoni – www.brunoleoni.it

For some carbon millionaires, lining their pockets legally through taxpayer subsidies and hand outs is not enough.  They choose to cheat even though they’re playing a game that’s already rigged.

The Financial Times reports that:

Oreste Vigorito, head of the IVPC energy company and president of Italy’s National Association of Wind Energy, was arrested on Tuesday in Naples. Vito Nicastri, a Sicilian business associate, was arrested in Alcamo, Sicily.

Two other men were arrested in Sicily and the Naples area, while 11 others were charged but not arrested.

Oreste Vigorito: Arrested Nov. 11

FT reports that these saviors of our planet were building wind farms that were “built with public subsidies but had never functioned.”

Vigorito had ties to Brian Caffyn, founder of the controversial “Cape Wind” project planned for Massachusetts’ Nantucket Sound, which has been criticized as a poor investment for taxpayers for the energy it will produce.  Vigorito was not an investor in Cape Wind.

According to the Boston Herald:

“What we found was quite remarkable,” David Tuerck, the institute’s executive director, said at the time. “Cape Wind stands to receive subsidies worth $731 million, or 77 percent of the cost of installing the project and 48 percent of the revenues it would generate. The policy question that this amount of subsidy raises is whether the project’s benefit is worth the huge public subsidies that the developer gets.”

The Herald reports that Mr. Caffyn’s 2007 divorce records reveal that “he amassed an $82 million fortune building wind farms around the world.”

Wind power remains an interesting and potentially useful technology.  However, if taxpayers are forced to pay for it they must receive a viable return on their investment.  Conservationists should not be forced to endure wind farms spoiling undeveloped places of natural beauty.  We should not allow wind farms to ruin the habitats of birds and other wildlife in ways we would never permit to established efficient methods of power generation.

It’s time politicians require the “green” business people who will reap fortunes from wind power to bear the financial costs and risks.   It’s time government zoning and environmental regulators ban wind turbines where they threaten wildlife and spoil human enjoyment of natural beauty.

Wind yes, but only when economically viable and only with respect for the quality of life both human and wild.

This article was amended slightly in response to a request from the Cape Wind Project.