For years, skeptical Cassandras have warned that climate alarmism is a Trojan horse for a globalist wealth redistribution agenda. They’ve been sneered at by the great and good of the media-elite as right-wing paranoids. Paranoia is justified, though, when they really are out to get you (or your money, at least).
Especially when they’re straight-up telling us so.
In Brussels (naturally) in 2015, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, openly admitted that the UN’s focus was not ecological, but economic. “We are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.” Although she didn’t explicitly name it, what economic model has reigned “for at least 150 years”? Capitalism.
Neither is the IMF shying away from stating their goal of global wealth redistribution.
According to the four authors, what we need is a global carbon tax. And not just a little carbon tax. For Australia — but bear in mind the report is not about Australia, despite some local reporting — a carbon tax of $US75 a tonne will be required, which at today’s exchange rate is $110. The report notes that the average carbon tax today is $US2.
The Gillard government’s carbon tax was just $US17. In its brief, unlamented time, it wreaked economic (and in Tasmania, environmental) havoc. The IMF wants to impose a carbon tax three times as high.
You can see this being a hit. Retail electricity prices would rise by between 70 per cent and 90 per cent from their already extremely high levels. And the price of petrol would increase by an estimated 10c a litre, although that sounds like a significant underestimate.
According to the IMF, countries such as China, which has no commitment to reduce emissions until after 2030, will need to impose a carbon tax of only $US25 because it’s a developing nation. We have heard that one before.
So, China, the world’s single biggest polluter, with one of the world’s highest GDPs, nuclear weapons and a space program, is a “developing” nation and thus entitled to lenient treatment? Could they make it any more blatant that this has nothing to do with reducing carbon dioxide emissions?
The IMF authors think voters won’t have a problem with a global carbon tax because governments will have all that new revenue to play with. “Options include cutting other kinds of taxes, supporting vulnerable households and communities, increasing investment in green energy, or simply returning the money to people as a dividend.”
Or what about this for a catchy idea? “Governments could compensate only the poorest 40 per cent of households — an approach that would leave three-quarters of the revenues for additional investment in green energy, innovation or to fund the Sustainable Development Goals”.
In other words, shift the world’s wealth away from the rich West.
As is the UN’s wont, this is bloviating, wannabe-socialist nonsense. But because it bears the imprimatur of a globalist institution, the sheep of the media-elite will bleat it out as holy writ. Just as they do the IPCC’s (”The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert” as Donna Laframboise puts it), summaries for policy makers, blatant political manifestos disguised as scientific reports.
The problem with these political, substandard reports is that they will be endlessly quoted — not so much for their contents but for their sheer release.
One only need look at the calibre of “expert” these globalist institutions are run by.
I also have been groaning over a study released by Harvard University’s Centre for International Development. Run by a former planning minister of the Venezuelan government…
theaustralian.com.au/commentary/groan-ronald-reagan-was-right-again
Just like Qatar, Nigeria, Iraq and Afghanistan sitting on the UN Human Rights Council.