180 Copenhagen: Global Taxes proposed to counter Warming

Copenhagen: Global Taxes proposed to counter Warming

The Anti-Globalization Protestors who mount demonstrations at the G8, G20, IMF etc are not Nationalists but Communists.

They're not Stalinist, but Trotskyist - the self-styled "Green Left".

Their aim is World Government; this is what the slogan "One World or None" means. It was used in 1946 to promote international control over Nuclear weapons (the IAEA). However, Stalin demurred at World Government.

One might fear what the Trots have in store for us, but that does not mean that there is no legitimate concern over the frontline issue. Restraining nuclear weapons is in everyone's interest; the only question is whether it necessitates World Government.

(1) Anti-Globalization Protestors plan to invade Copenhagen conference
(2) Copenhagen Anti-Globalization Movement - Naomi Klein
(3) But are they really Anti-globalization? Chomsky says No - they oppose Protectionism
(4) Chomsky interview: "No sane person is opposed to globalization"
(5) Global Tax: $US10 billion a year to fund Copenhagen Green measures
(6) France proposes Global tax on financial transactions to fund Copenhagen measures
(7) Global financial transactions tax (currency exchange levy) mooted
(8) Copenhagen plan for Global Taxation & "unelected global authority"
(9) Airlines fear Tax of $4-5 per international airline ticket
(10) Australian Greens write Indonesia's policy proposal

(1) Anti-Globalization Protestors plan to invade Copenhagen conference

11/25/2009

From Seattle to Copenhagen
Climate Change Summit Becomes a Target for Protest

By Christopher Lawton
AFP

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,663142,00.html

A number of groups are planning to hold demonstrations and protests in Copenhagen during next month's climate summit.

Is global warming the new globalization? Environmental activists are hoping that demonstrations at next month's climate summit in Denmark can forge a protest movement like the anti-globalization movement seen after the WTO riots in 1999. But the Danish authorities have other ideas.

If you missed Seattle, you won't want to miss Copenhagen. That, at least, is what Tadzio Müller, a political scientist and climate activist with Climate Justice Action -- a global network of activists and non-governmental organizations committed to combating climate change -- is telling people. The mass protest movement, he hopes, is turning green. ...

To that end, Climate Justice Action and other groups are planning a number of activities to drive home their message. On Dec. 11, one group plans to take "direct action to confront corporations taking part" in the summit in an action called "Don't Buy the Lie." A number of groups are planning a worldwide protest for Dec. 12. And on Dec. 13th, another group hopes to blockade the Copenhagen harbor in protest against the way goods are produced, transported and consumed.

Reminiscent of Seattle

Perhaps most significant, however, Müller and his group plan to storm the conference on Dec. 16 and "disrupt the sessions and use the space to talk about our agenda," as the Climate Justice Action Web site describes it. The hope is that official delegations participating in the summit will join the protest, called "Reclaim Power."

The actions are reminiscent of similar tactics used during the WTO protest in Seattle, when protestors were successfully able to prevent delegates from reaching the convention center where meetings were being held. A riot quickly ensued, ultimately resulting in 600 arrests and numerous injuries -- and in a new model for anti-globalization protests that has been repeated numerous times since then. Indeed, some see climate change as being a new focus for the kind of demonstrations that have grown out of the anti-globalization movement. ...

(2) Seattle to Copenhagen Anti-Globalization Movement - Naomi Klein
Copenhagen: An Anti-Globalization Movement Comes of Age

By Naomi Klein, The Nation. Posted November 16, 2009.

http://www.alternet.org/environment/143992/copenhagen:_an_anti-globalization_movement_comes_of_age/

Ten years after the Seattle protests, climate activists are poised to make the U.N. climate change summit their "growing up party."

The book is a fascinating account of what really happened in Seattle, but when I spoke to David Solnit, the direct-action guru who helped engineer the shutdown, I found him less interested in reminiscing about 1999 than in talking about the upcoming United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen and the "climate justice" actions he is helping to organize across the United States on November 30. "This is definitely a Seattle-type moment," Solnit told me. "People are ready to throw down."

There is certainly a Seattle quality to the Copenhagen mobilization: the huge range of groups that will be there; the diverse tactics that will be on display; and the developing-country governments ready to bring activist demands into the summit. But Copenhagen is not merely a Seattle do-over. It feels, instead, as though the progressive tectonic plates are shifting, creating a movement that builds on the strengths of an earlier era but also learns from its mistakes.

The big criticism of the movement the media insisted on calling "antiglobalization" was always that it had a laundry list of grievances and few concrete alternatives. The movement converging on Copenhagen, in contrast, is about a single issue--climate change--but it weaves a coherent narrative about its cause, and its cures, that incorporates virtually every issue on the planet. In this narrative, our climate is changing not simply because of particular polluting practices but because of the underlying logic of capitalism, which values short-term profit and perpetual growth above all else. Our governments would have us believe that the same logic can now be harnessed to solve the climate crisis--by creating a tradable commodity called "carbon" and by transforming forests and farmland into "sinks" that will supposedly offset our runaway emissions.

Climate-justice activists in Copenhagen will argue that, far from solving the climate crisis, carbon-trading represents an unprecedented privatization of the atmosphere, and that offsets and sinks threaten to become a resource grab of colonial proportions. Not only will these "market-based solutions" fail to solve the climate crisis, but this failure will dramatically deepen poverty and inequality, because the poorest and most vulnerable people are the primary victims of climate change--as well as the primary guinea pigs for these emissions-trading schemes.

But activists in Copenhagen won't simply say no to all this. They will aggressively advance solutions that simultaneously reduce emissions and narrow inequality. Unlike at previous summits, where alternatives seemed like an afterthought, in Copenhagen the alternatives will take center stage. For instance, the direct-action coalition Climate Justice Action has called on activists to storm the conference center on December 16. Many will do this as part of the "bike bloc," riding together on an as yet unrevealed "irresistible new machine of resistance" made up of hundreds of old bicycles. The goal of the action is not to shut down the summit, Seattle-style, but to open it up, transforming it into "a space to talk about our agenda, an agenda from below, an agenda of climate justice, of real solutions against their false ones.... This day will be ours."

(3) But are they really Anti-globalization? Chomsky says No - they oppose Protectionism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-globalization_movement

Anti-globalization movement

Anti-globalization advocates urge that preservation of the natural environment, human rights (especially workplace rights and conditions) and democratic institutions are likely to be placed at undue risk by globalization unless mandatory standards are attached to liberalisation. Noam Chomsky stated in 2002 that

The term "globalization" has been appropriated by the powerful to refer to a specific form of international economic integration, one based on investor rights, with the interests of people incidental. That is why the business press, in its more honest moments, refers to the "free trade agreements" as "free investment agreements" (Wall St. Journal). Accordingly, advocates of other forms of globalization are described as "anti-globalization"; and some, unfortunately, even accept this term, though it is a term of propaganda that should be dismissed with ridicule. No sane person is opposed to globalization, that is, international integration. Surely not the left and the workers movements, which were founded on the principle of international solidarity—that is, globalization in a form that attends to the rights of people, not private power systems.[9]  ...

[edit] Appropriateness of the term

Some participants[citation needed]  consider the term "anti-globalization" to be a misnomer. The term suggests that its followers support protectionism and/or nationalism, which is not always the case - in fact, some supporters of anti-globalization are strong opponents of both nationalism and protectionism: for example, the No Border network argues for unrestricted migration and the abolition of all national border controls.

The term "anti-globalization" does not distinguish the international left-wing anti-globalization position from a strictly nationalist anti-globalization position. Many nationalist movements, such as the French National Front, are opposed to globalization, but argue that the alternative to globalization is the protection of the nation-state, sometimes, according to critics, in explicitly racist or fascist terms. Other groups, influenced by the Third Position, are also classifiable as anti-globalization. However, their overall world view is rejected by groups such as Peoples Global Action and anti-fascist groups such as ANTIFA.

Some activists, notably David Graeber, see the movement as opposed instead to neoliberalism or "corporate globalization". He argues that the term "anti-globalization" is a term coined by the media, and that radical activists are actually more in favor of globalization, in the sense of "effacement of borders and the free movement of people, possessions and ideas" than are the IMF or WTO. He also notes that activists use the terms "globalization movement" and "anti-globalization movement" interchangeably, indicating the confusion of the terminology.[12]  The term "alter-globalization" has been used to make this distinction clear.

While the term "anti-globalization" arose from the movement's opposition to free-trade agreements (which have often been considered part of something called "globalization"), various participants contend they are opposed to only certain aspects of globalization and instead describe themselves, at least in French-speaking organisations, as "anti-capitalist," "anti-plutocracy," or "anti-corporate." Le Monde Diplomatique 's editor, Ignacio Ramonet's, expression of "the one-way thought" (la pensée unique) became slang against neoliberal policies and the Washington consensus.[13]

Two main approaches to finding a common term for the movement can be distinguished: one that might be described as "anti-globalist" or "regionalist", and another that embraces some aspects of globalization (like cross-cultural exchange of information or the diminishing role of the nation-state) while rejecting others (like neo-liberal economics). While proponents of both approaches often cooperate and are a reaction to the same phenomena, their differences might be actually greater than the common ground. The former approach can be described as outright anti-globalist (usually including what is perceived as "Americanization" of culture), while the latter would be more appropriately called "globalization critics". In practice, however, there is no set boundary between these approaches, and the term "anti-globalization" is often indiscriminately applied.

(4) Chomsky interview: "No sane person is opposed to globalization"
On Escalation of Violence in the Middle East

Noam Chomsky interviewed by Toni Gabric

The Croatian Feral Tribune, May 7, 2002

http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20020507.htm

...
9. The anti-globalization movement is often criticized for a lack of a theoretical foundation and clear goals. Do you agree with such critics and are you satisfied, in this respect, with the work of the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre which you have participated in?

The term "globalization" has been appropriated by the powerful to refer to a specific form of international economic integration, one based on investor rights, with the interests of people incidental. That is why the business press, in its more honest moments, refers to the "free trade agreements" as "free investment agreements" (Wall St. Journal). Accordingly, advocates of other forms of globalization are described as "anti-globalization"; and some, unfortunately, even accept this term, though it is a term of propaganda that should be dismissed with ridicule. No sane person is opposed to globalization, that is, international integration. Surely not the left and the workers movements, which were founded on the principle of international solidarity - that is, globalization in a form that attends to the rights of people, not private power systems.

(5) Global Tax: $US10 billion a year to fund Copenhagen Green measures

Australia backs green fund as part of new climate deal

ADAM MORTON, COPENHAGEN December 8, 2009 - 12:21PM

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/australia-backs-green-fund-as-part-of-new-climate-deal-20091208-kfwn.html

Australia has backed the creation of a $US10 billion a year green fund to help vulnerable countries and called for the creation of a new legal treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol on the first day of the Copenhagen climate conference.

Speaking on behalf of the "umbrella group", including the US, Canada, Japan and Russia, Australian diplomats supported a "substantial increase in financial and investment flows" as part of a new climate deal to start in 2012.

"There is an emerging consensus that a core element of the Copenhagen accord should be to mobilise $10 billion a year by 2012 to support adaptation and mitigation in developing countries, particularly the most vulnerable and least developed countries that could be destabilised by the impacts of climate change," Australian ambassador Louise Hand said.

The statement was a reiteration of Australia's backing of the "fast-track" green fund at the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Trinidad.

In another session, Australia said the umbrella group would like to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which contains targets from industrialised countries, with a single document that covers everyone.

This is a highly contentious point - developing countries want the Kyoto Protocol to be kept as it recognises developed countries historic responsibility for climate change, but the world cannot achieve the emissions reductions demanded by scientists without action from the emerging economies of China and India. And the US Congress will not ratify Kyoto.

Australia has signalled it will be part of an extended Kyoto if that is what the conference decides. It has previously won praise for its proposal for a "Kyoto plus" model that would include both rich nations emissions targets and green policy commitments by developing nations.

The comments came during an opening day off grandstanding rhetoric from leading diplomats but few significant shifts in negotiating position.

The European Union put pressure on the US by saying it would only increase its legislated target of a 20 per cent greenhouse gas emissions cut by 2020 up to 30 per cent if the US offered to do more to cut its emissions.

This will be difficult: US President Barack Obama has offered a "provisional" 2020 target of about a 17 per cent cut below 2005 levels - about a 4 per cent cut below 1990 levels. He has signalled he can not offer more at Copenhagen than the US Congress might be prepared to pass in its stalled emissions trading bills, though there may be room to move through the inclusion of international forestry credits.

But the US position was boosted overnight after its Environment Protection Authority declared that greenhouse gases pose a danger to human health and the environment. It potentially paves the way for it to regulate emissions from power plants and factories by setting a national emissions limit if legislation does not get through the Senate.

Elsewhere, a draft Copenhagen accord prepared by China and leaked to online news service Carbon + Environment Daily proposed a veto on applying carbon tariffs to imported goods, but no mention of a global emissions target for 2050. The draft was prepared last month with Brazil, South Africa and India as a counter to a Danish proposal that reportedly would set a mid-century target of a 50 per cent cut in emissions. China fears this could leave it carrying too heavy a burden unless rich countries boost current emissions targets.

The world's two biggest emitters, China and the US, continued a stand-off over whether the developing giant would open its emissions accounting up to outside scrutiny, as would be required of all countries under a new treaty. Chief US negotiator Jonathan Pershing said at a press conference: "We need public reporting with maximum transparency, we need a means to review our individual and collective efforts."

But China wants only developing countries policies made possible by support from a green fund should be subject to international verification of its emissions.

Mr Pershing said the US would not act alone to tackle climate change. "The US is currently responsible for one fifth of global emissions, which means that four-fifths come from other countries, which means that unless we can work out a successful global agreement we won't solve the problem," he said.

The US spokesman also flatly dismissed suggestions that so-called "climategate" - the barny over emails leaked from the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit, sparking claims of data manipulation and suppression - would have any impact on the talks. This ignored the best efforts of the sceptical Saudi Arabian delegation, which called for an independent investigation into the contents of the email.

Meanwhile, the Indian delegation was in turmoil after its most experienced negotiator refused to come to Copenhagen in protest over the Indian Government announcing a carbon intensity target to slow emissions growth by up to 25 per cent by 2020. There is strong opposition in India to taking on a target before rich nations live up to their commitments to cut emissions. The Opposition walked out of Parliament yesterday as Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh defended the policy.

(6) France proposes Global tax on financial transactions to fund Copenhagen measures

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/greenpage/environment/78729202.html

The Canadian Press - ONLINE EDITION

France wants to help developing countries combat climate change with small tax

By: Edith M. Lederer, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

7/12/2009 7:04 PM |

France is pushing for a political agreement at the climate conference in Copenhagen to include a tax on financial transactions to help developing countries, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Monday.

Kouchner said a very small tax - 0.005 per cent on financial transactions - would help developing countries fight poverty, promote education and health, and meet the costs of combatting climate change.

Such a tax on all financial movements would be "impossible to feel," he said, explaining that it produces just 5 cents "on a movement of a thousand dollars, a thousand euros."

Kouchner told reporters after meeting U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that France has been working on the tax idea for a year and hosted a conference in Paris in October with 59 countries as well as financial and economic experts to put together a proposal.

He conceded there is some opposition, even in liberal countries, but he predicted "all the people of the world will accept this kind of contribution."

"It will be done, believe me, it will be done. I don't know when. But I know that we (have) to rebalance the responsibility and the sufferings in this world," Kouchner said. "If it comes through this conference it will be a big, big, big, big benefit."

The secretary-general expressed hope that the French proposal "will be discussed in Copenhagen as a way to generate financial support in addition to public fundings to be provided by the governments."

Kouchner said France is also pressing for the creation of a World Environment Organization with a mandate to monitor and verify the commitments made in Copenhagen on reducing carbon emissions.

He said he thinks this idea will be developed before a conference in 2012 to mark the 20th anniversary of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

"Obviously we need results, not only talks, but talks are very important to get results," Kouchner said.

He recalled that just two months ago the world was talking about "the coming disaster in Copenhagen."

Today, the talk is of "the huge success coming soon. Let's hope. We'll see," Kouchner said. "We are now a bit more optimistic of getting a political statement at the end of Copenhagen."

The secretary-general said that with 105 world leaders expected on Dec. 18, there is momentum to reach a strong political agreement in Copenhagen.

"The more ambitious, the stronger agreement we have in Copenhagen, the easier, the quicker the process we will have to a legally binding treaty in 2010, as early as possible," Ban said.

(7) Global financial transactions tax (currency exchange levy) mooted

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/07/tobin-tax-climate-change-investment

Now let's tax transactions

A currency exchange levy would work politically and morally for a debt-ridden, post-crisis world

Stephany Griffith-Jones

guardian.co.uk, Monday 7 December 2009 20.30 GMT

A global financial transactions tax may have seemed a utopian dream in the past. This was surprising, given that on a national level many countries have successfully implemented financial transactions taxes. Indeed, one of the most effective to date is the UK stamp duty on transactions of stocks and shares, which has raised significant tax revenue for many decades without reducing significantly the activity of the stock market. Many other countries have implemented similar taxes, either on domestic financial transactions or capital inflows.

Resistance has been greater in the past to an internationally co-ordinated tax on financial transactions, often described as a Tobin tax. However, the mood has changed dramatically since the global financial crisis. Several important players have openly backed it, including the French, German and Brazilian governments; and several parliaments, like Belgium's, have passed legislation to facilitate its implementation. Importantly, Adair Turner, chairman of Britain's Financial Services Authority, the regulator of the City of London – the world's largest foreign exchange market – has openly backed such a tax, as has the FSA chief executive, Hector Sants. Particularly significant is the fact that Gordon Brown clearly supported a global financial transactions tax as a valid option in the lead-up to the recent G20 meeting.

The reasons are clear. First, even a very small tax – say, of 0.005% – on all foreign exchange transactions of the major currencies, would generate a large amount of tax revenue, estimated at over $30bn a year. Governments, especially in developed economies, have vast public deficits and debts as a result of costly bailouts of their financial system and other effects of the crisis. They are therefore keen to raise taxes, especially those that would not be paid by most of their voters. Preliminary studies show that the largest burden of a financial transactions tax would be borne by a very small group of very rich people, who make large investments in institutions such as hedge funds, which trade currencies frequently. For a government like Britain's, which in its pre-budget report will have to grapple with the issue of reducing future public deficits in a way that does not hurt ordinary citizens, a global financial transactions tax is an attractive option.

Second, both the private and the public sector have difficulty in funding sufficient investment, particularly after the financial crisis. However, the need to expand finance for investment in low-carbon technology, especially in developing countries, is increasingly urgent. The planet really cannot wait. Providing such additional finance to developing countries for clean technologies would not only slow down climate change directly, it would also facilitate greatly the deal that should be agreed in Copenhagen between developing and developed countries to include meaningful limits on carbon emissions.

To help fulfil both objectives, an international financial transactions tax could be agreed by the governments whose currencies are most widely traded. Half of the proceeds could be kept by the country whose currency is being taxed, to reduce its budget deficit – thus replacing less desirable increases in other taxes or reductions in essential government spending, such as in health or education. The other half of the proceeds could go to an international fund to finance efficient investment in climate change mitigation in developing countries.

A third reason for a financial transactions tax, especially on foreign exchange transactions, is that it is increasingly easy to implement. The greater centralisation and automisation of the exchanges' and banks' clearing and settlements systems – as well as the greater standardisation that will imply far more derivatives transactions settled on exchanges after the financial crisis – make the collection of such a tax much easier. It also makes avoidance of payment more difficult and less desirable, as the established settlements system would offer safety for such transactions.

This is a win-win proposal, through which many would gain and very few would lose. It would show that governments can design and adopt rational solutions that favour their citizens, now and in the future. If the financial sector supports such a proposal, it will improve significantly its rather battered image, given the harm it is seen to have caused. An international transactions tax could help restore the trust in markets and governments, now undermined by the global crisis. But above all, it is economically and morally the right thing to do: the international financial transactions tax is clearly an idea whose time has come.

(8) Copenhagen plan for Global Taxation & "unelected global authority"

From Leon Andrews <buxtonboy@gmail.com> 7 December 2009 22:25  From: "Peggy" <platypus123@bigpond.com>

Kevin Rudd's $7b UN wrangle

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/kevin-rudds-7b-un-wrangle/story-e6frfhqf-1225794045942

Andrew Bolt

Herald Sun (Melbourne)

November 04, 2009 12:00AM

NEXT month Kevin Rudd flies to Copenhagen to help seal a United Nations deal to cut the world's emissions - and to make Australia hand over part of its wealth

So keen is the Prime Minister to get this new global-warming treaty signed that he's been appointed a "friend of the chairman" to tie up loose ends.

So here's the question: is Rudd really going to approve a draft treaty that could force Australia to hand over an astonishing $7 billion a year to a new and unelected global authority?

Yes, that's $7 billion, or about $330 from every man, woman and child. Every year. To be passed on to countries such as China and Bangladesh, and the sticky-fingered in-between.

And a second question, perhaps even more important: is Rudd really going to approve a draft treaty which also gives that unelected authority the power to fine us billions of dollars more if it doesn't like our green policies?

It is incredible that these questions have not been debated by either the Rudd Government or the Opposition, whose hapless leader, Malcolm Turnbull, on Monday admitted he did not even have a copy of this treaty.

Australia's wealth and sovereign rights may soon be signed away, so why hasn't the public at least been informed?

In case you think what I'm saying is just too incredible - too far-fetched - to be true, let me quote this draft treaty.

Here is paragraph 33 of annex 1, which has already been discussed at UN meetings involving Australian negotiators in Bangkok and now Barcelona. Brackets indicate phrases which still need final agreement:

"By 2020 the scale of financial flows to support adaptation in developing countries must be [at least USD 67 billion] [in the range of USD 70-140 billion] per year."

Plus, says paragraph 17 of annex III E, developed countries such as Australia should "compensate for damage" to the economies of poorer countries "and also compensate for lost opportunities, resources, lives, land and dignity" allegedly caused by our gases.

And here comes the bill, in paragraph 41 of annex 1 of this extortion note: "[Financial resources of the Convention Adaptation Fund"] [may] [shall] include: (a) [Assessed contributions [of at least 0.7% of the annual GDP of developed country parties] ... "

In fact, deeper in the draft our bill for our "historical climate debt, including adaptation debt" climbs to at "at least [0.5-1 per cent of GDP]".

Wow. Let's do the sums. Australia's GDP is about $1000 billion a year. So this demand for 0.7 per cent of our annual wealth works out to $7 billion a year, to be handed over to a new global agency of the United Nations.

That's your money, folks. Billions to be sent to Third World governments and authoritarian regimes to allegedly deal with a warming that actually halted in 2001. And all funnelled through the UN, which brought us such fast-money wheezes as the Oil-for-Food corruption scandal.

Never have the Third World's demands for the First World's cash been so brazen.

But wait, there's more. Because never has the Left's mad goal of world government been so close, either.

This draft treaty, on which Climate Change Minister Penny Wong has worked, also calls for the creation of a new "board" of global warming bureaucrats appointed by the countries signing the Copenhagen deal.

The powers this board will have over us are astonishing. For a start, it will check our emissions, and could "impose financial penalties, at a minimum of 10 times the market price of carbon, for any emissions in excess".

Work it out: if we exceed our emissions target by, say, as much as Rudd warned two years ago we'd overshoot by 2012, we'd be up for a fine of $1.4 billion even with the very lowest carbon price under Rudd's plan.

Even more outrageously, this new world body could impose "penalties and fines on non-compliance of developed country parties" such as Australia that failed to honour "commitments to ... provide support in the form of financial resources, technology transfer and capacity building".

All this gives a remote and unelected world body a huge and unprecedented say in how we run our own economy and our foreign affairs. For instance, any Australian government that decided to keep gassy coal-fired power stations running to avoid blackouts or to save Australian jobs potentially faces huge fines from foreigners.

Likewise, if it stopped handing over technological breakthroughs to a China or some African leader it no longer trusted, it could be fined again.

But wait, there's still more.

You'd think this draft treaty that Rudd has worked on would at least give us a say over how our billions are spent.

But no. UN bodies are already notoriously hard for any one nation to supervise or restrain.

Even the United States, the biggest donor of all, could not stop the corruption at UNESCO two decades ago, and was forced to walk out in protest. Nor could it stop dictatorships such as Libya and Cuba from later holding key roles in the UN's human rights bodies.

And with this new global warming body, the vote of the paying West will be overruled even more decisively by the spending rest.

Under this draft treaty, the new board's biggest spending arm - the "adaptation fund" - will be managed by a "governing board comprising

three members from the five United Nations regional groups, two members from small island developing nations and two members from the least developed countries".

That formula means the industrialised nations which pay most could hold just one of the nine seats on the body which will then spend their cash. Our cash.

That's the treaty being prepared for the Copenhagen meeting. That's the billions we risk having to hand over. That's the power we risk losing over our own affairs.

Now ask: why hasn't this been the subject of furious debate? Where's the Government? Where's the Opposition?

Well, here's Rudd's one response to this threat, given only this week: "At this stage there's no global agreement as to what long-term financing arrangements should underpin a deal at Copenhagen."

That's a "trust me", with no bottom line. In fact, Rudd is already reaching into his - your - wallet: "Australia, once a global agreement is shaped, would always be prepared to put forward its fair share."But how much? Seven billion dollars a year? Five? Three? Hello?

As for Turnbull ... well, it's tragic.

Badgered by Alan Jones on 2GB on Monday on this very point, he said: "Of course the poorest countries are going to need assistance ... (But) there is no way that anything like this would be accepted without extensive debate."

So where is that debate, Malcolm? Why aren't you screaming from the rooftops for reassurances that our wealth won't be squandered and our powers handed over?

Just this week the European Union said it would pay its share of an

$82 billion cheque to this new body if countries such as ours come on
board, too - so who's applying the brakes?

Not our politicians, for sure.

So if you oppose this surrender of our billions and our freedom, better start saying so now, before it's all too late.

(9) Airlines fear Tax of $4-5 per international airline ticket

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d6fdc1f8-e2d0-11de-b028-00144feab49a.html?nclick_check=1

Airlines' concerns grow of global tax support

By Pilita Clark, Aerospace Correspondent

Published: December 7 2009 02:00 | Last updated: December 7 2009 02:00

Some of the world's leading airlines are becoming increasingly concerned the summit will back a global aviation tax to help poorer nations combat climate change.

Although detailed funding decisions are not expected to be finalised at the Copenhagen summit, several aviation tax options have stayed in the official negotiating text. One is for a levy on all air fares except flights to or from poorer nations, and another is "in the order of $4 to $5 per international airline ticket".

"We certainly don't want a levy, although unfortunately there's some risk that that could occur in Copenhagen," Andy Kershaw, British Airways manager of environment policy, told an Institute of Economic Affairs conference in London last week.

Virgin Atlantic is also worried. "We would hope that the politicians would recognise the limitations to any global aviation tax," Steve Ridgway, chief executive, told the Financial Times. "Any carbon tax or levy is a blunt instrument which won't necessarily deliver any climate change benefit."

US airlines, meanwhile, have been lobbying Todd Stern, US special envoy for climate change, urging him to dismiss what the Air Transport Association of America calls "an exorbitant tax to fund climate change adaptation measures in developing countries". This is a reference to the "international air passenger adaptation levy" proposed on behalf of several countries by the Maldives, where leaders fear their Indian Ocean islands will be submerged by rising sea levels unless radical adaptation steps are taken.

Backed by other developing nations, the levy is projected to raise initially up to $10bn annually to help poorer countries cope with climate change.

Finding the money to help developing countries tackle global warming has been a critical part of Copenhagen talks, where delegates from more than 190 nations will try to forge a global deal on greenhouse gas emission targets to replace the 1997 Kyoto protocol, whose first commitment period expires in 2012.

(10) Australian Greens write Indonesia's policy proposal

Copenhagen Glimmer

December 8, 2009 - 7:19AM

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/blogs/greenlines/copenhagen-glimmer/20091207-kf5h.html

It may come as a surprise but Indonesia - once one of the world’s great environmental vandals - could be the glimmer of hope at Copenhagen.

Last week key stakeholders were handed the Indonesian ‘‘green paper’’ on climate change - essentially the country’s draft climate change mitigation plan.

The policy, which is not yet public, is to be presented to participants at the Copenhagen climate negotiations as evidence Indonesia is prepared to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

It was co-authored by ANU economist Frank Jotzo and Salim Mazouz, a former associate director of economic modelling firm McLennan Magasanik Associates which did Treasury modelling for the proposed Australian emissions trading scheme.

AusAid and Treasury also provided direct assistance, and the policy paper is credited as a joint Indonesian and Australian publication.

This does not mean the policy is an imposition on the Indonesians. The green policy was commissioned independently by Finance Minister, and all round policy star, Dr Sri Mulyani Indrwati. She was in Australian when the Rudd Government released its July 2008 green paper on an emissions trading scheme, and felt a similar document for Indonesia’s strategy was needed.

Since the commissioning of the green paper, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has announced emissions reduction targets for Indonesia of 26 per cent on business as usual levels by 2020, rising to 41 per cent with climate change funding to developing countries.

The green paper finds those targets represent hard emissions cuts of 6 per cent and 24 per cent on 2005 levels by 2020.

The centrepiece of the document, as far as Greenlines is concerned, is a proposed carbon tax on the combustion of fossil fuels. The tax would start at 80,000 rupiah (about $9) a tonne of carbon, increasing five per cent in real terms by 2020. The paper also proposes that energy subsidies be cut to further remove distortion from the market and allow clean energy to compete.

The green paper states the money taken from the tax could be used to compensate the poor in Indonesian society from electricity price rises - of which there are many.

Geothermal energy would also be driven with a range of policies - as Indonesia has 40 per cent of the world’s hot rock resources. For example, the Government would establish a tariff to subsidies the purchase of geothermal energy by electricity retailers. There would also be a mapping program to analyse the best geothermal sites. The profits from geothermal energy would be split between the supplier and the Government.

Of course, Indonesia will also seek to exploit the global offset market, by developing carbon offsets from not cutting down forests, and helping to end deforestation. The policy paper proposes the money gained from selling such offsets would be given to regional governments, in the form of targeted payments, for climate change mitigation.

There are a heap of other measures proposed, including changes to key governance structures, but Greenlines suggests a read of the document when it is released soon on Ministry of Finance website.

Despite the great potential in the climate change policy, we should not gloss over Indonesia’s environment record - it is largely appalling.

According to the World Bank, Indonesia is the world’s third largest emitter - though the Indonesian Government deny this. At any rate the country’s emissions are huge (though low on a per capita basis), mainly coming from deforestation and the burning of peatland.

There are many other environmental problems in Indonesia besides climate change.

Corruption in the forestry industry (and within Government) has meant a massive depletion of the country’s unique - and truly spectacular - forests. That includes a shocking illegal logging rate - which some estimate to represent half of all the tree cuts cut down in Indonesia.

The smog over Jakarta is another classic example. Indonesia is also home to some of the world’s most endangered mammals including the Sumatran and Javan Tiger and Rhino.

Recently the Citarum River in West Java was identified as the most polluted river in the world by the United Nations Environmental Program.

Indonesia is also yet to establish a Minister for Environment - despite faint noises from Yudhoyono to do so. Currently, there is a ‘‘state’’ minister for the environment (essentially a parliamentary secretary). At the moment the Forestry Minister controls environmental policy - which some might say a conflict of interest.

But the election of Yudhoyono as president and an increasing environmental consciousness in Indonesia’s emerging elites is now driving some change.

The green paper is a great step forward. But it is still a list of potential policies. Like Australia there could be a watering down of the policy (see what happened between the Rudd Government’s emissions trading green paper and the policy now) and Indonesia is certainly not immune to populism and rent seeking.

And if implemented in full the climate change green paper will not solve a number of environment problems Indonesia is facing.

But it will help.

And as an added bonus. If the green paper is implemented, then it will be hard for the developed world to say the developing countries like Indonesia are doing nothing to reduce their emissions.

And it will be just as hard for developed countries like Australia *cough, cough* to do nothing themselves.