Carbon trading: Sell a product you don’t have and can’t deliver to a buyer who doesn’t want it.
That is the very definition of easy money, yet the NZ Government has proposed that process and legalised it in what they call the “Emissions Trading Scheme.” Though they created it to “fight climate change” they now openly admit it will have no effect upon the climate. But, persuading us to agree to something on grounds later admitted to be false is the definition of fraud. And, since they claim to be “fighting climate change” while admitting the climate will be unaffected, they reveal a distinct denial.
So, regrettably, our Government is controlled by fraudsters and climate deniers.
Since the Government knows about the climate through the climate specialists in NIWA, is NIWA’s scientific advice also controlled by fraudsters and climate deniers? Since the climate specialists in NIWA are also the climate specialists in the NZ Royal Society, is the Royal Society, too, controlled by fraudsters and climate deniers?
The following quotes are from a NZ Herald article, The Carbon Detectives, published Dec 20, 2010.
Bart Chilton, a commissioner at the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, says if the US creates a nationwide cap-and-trade market, carbon could become the world’s most widely traded commodity.
But it’s a “commodity” in fiction, not truth. The commodity of “carbon” is unlike oil, pork bellies or platinum. You don’t possess the commodity you sell, it’s impossible to deliver and anyway the buyer has no reason to receive it.
Such a contract is witless, created only to extract money from the unwitting. If you’re awake, you might become rich, but at the expense of your fellow citizens, who don’t really get a poor bargain: they get no bargain, for the price of everything connected with “carbon” emissions rises and they must pay the increase or go without. There is no benefit.
In a society where getting to work needs a few litres of petrol and keeping the house liveable in winter needs a few kilowatts of electricity, going without is not an option.
Gregg Marland, a staff scientist at the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, says, “If you’re selling oil, you’re actually transferring something tangible. If somebody lies, somebody loses,” he says. “In a CO2 transaction, you can lie and both win.” The seller gets paid, and the buyer has his credit for compliance. “We’re going to create a situation where both sides can win by cheating,” Marland says.
The consequence of this spectacular foolishness cannot be a reduction in atmospheric levels of CO2. Not that that’s a tragedy, because nobody cares and the climate won’t notice. But the money it’s costing us to not reduce CO2 is perfectly scandalous!
The only precedent for such willing self-delusion lies in the Dutch tulip bulb craze, the South Sea Company bubble and the original 1920 Ponzi scheme.
Wake up, my people!
Views: 55
In terms of precedents, we should probably also mention the original dotcom bubble that burst around 2000.
I worked for a search company that was bought by NBCi, the internet arm of NBC TV.
They had the bizarre business model of paying people to syndicate their service. The theory was that they grabbed market share this way. The problem was that they hadn’t figured out how to “monetize” the service.
We saw our stock option value decrease from $1.80 to 1c in about 18 months.
As you say, CO2 trading is a false market, and anybody putting money into this is likely to find themselves suffering the same fate as the dotcommers.
I think one of the first casualties of the green economy will be the wind sector. There are already signs that this is in trouble.
I have probably posted this before, but here is a post by Richard North on the CFC/CDM scam that is a byproduct of CO2 regulation.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/06/perverse-consequences.html
“How bad is climate trading fraud?”
New Energy Finance estimates that about 400 million metric tons of trades may have been fraudulent last year, or about 7 percent of the total market, including futures transactions. The Europol figure indicates about 27 percent of the market was fraudulent over the 18-month period, or 1.9 billion tons. That’s based on VAT of 17 percent, an average carbon-allowance price of 15.80 euros a ton and 7 billion tons traded in the period.
http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/2010/03/04/how-bad-is-climate-trading-fraud/
Carbon trading is ideally set up for fraud, because the commodity being traded is invisible.
A very timely response in this vein by Jack Barnes, a retired hedge fund manager to an article in The Australian by Connie Hedegaard, European Commissioner for Climate Action.
See “Taxing lessons of a flawed ETS” and “Cancun deal puts climate action back on track”
https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/open-threads/climate/controversy-and-scandal/comment-page-2/#comment-34325
Connie writes “Now we have a deal”
Jack documents how the Danish tax authority has been robbed blind (38 billion kroner) by a carbon trading scandal that has rocked the market for carbon offsets. Hedegaard, then Denmark’s Climate and Energy Minister, helped set up and manage a system where there were no background checks on the listings of permitted traders.
This week’s Listener (w/b 1 Jan 2011) has an editorial gushing over the need for carbon trading and REDD.
It looks like a press release from WWF to me. I don’t know why I buy the Listener, it is full of warmist rubbish like this. Bill Rawlston is the only column worth reading.
Europol Arrests More Than 100 In Carbon Trading Fraud
P Gosselin, NoTricksZone | 28 December 2010
– Estimated 5 billion euros in damage for European taxpayers
– Massive fraud involving criminal networks / Middle East
Here’s more proof that trading of CO2 emission certificates is fraught with fraud and attracts seedy criminal organizations – all costing the consumers and taxpayers billions.
The Austrian online Kleine Zeitung here reports that Europol have raided an elaborate CO2 emissions scam in Italy and have arrested more than 100 persons. The Kleine Zeitung writes: “The damage runs in the billions of euros”.
According to Europol, the Italian tax authorities, directed by the Milan Prosecutor’s Office, have raided 150 companies in Italy. The fraud involves evasion of value added tax with CO2 emission certificates. More than 100 have been arrested and are suspected of being involved in organised crime.
The Kleiner Zeitung reports that the Italian Electric Utilities trading markets had earlier suspended entire trading with emissions certificates “because a high number of suspicious transactions”. The loss in tax revenue just from VAT (MTIC (Missing Trader IntraCommunity Fraud) alone is estimated to be 500 million euros, the online Kleine Zeitung writes.
[Snip]
Norway, Switzerland and the EU countries Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Latvia, the Netherlands, Slovak Republic and Portugal are all among the countries trying to identify the network of criminals behind this massive fraud – a fraud with links to criminal networks operating outside the EU and in other continents, like the Middle East.
Continues…………..
So amazing I forgot the link
http://climatechangedispatch.com/home/8376-europol-arrests-more-than-100-in-carbon-trading-fraud
Is the whole thing imploding?
Carbon trading has been a fraud since the Enron corporation suggested it to U.S. President Bill Clinton in the 90’s. Enron started the practice of paying scientists and purported environmental groups to claim increases in CO2 would create a catastrophe. Enron even wrote the Kyoto accords for Clinton.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/05/29/lawrence-solomon-enron-s-other-secret.aspx