NGOs: It's Worse Than We Thought

The official numbers of partygoers to the 17th Conference of Parties in Durban, South Africa, shape up like this:

Figure 1. Theoretical distribution of the 14,570 partygoers at the Durban 17th Conference of Partygoers. Numbers indicate total delegates from that group.

Slightly more government delegates than NGO representatives. However, as in all things climate, it’s a bit more complex than that.

Anthony points out in a recent post that the proposal on taxation submitted by Bolivia was in fact written by Oxfam. But it’s not just some random Oxfam connection. The Bolivian country delegation itself contains an Oxfam member. And they’re not the only country to do that. The Bangladesh country delegation has three Oxfam members. Belgium has two Oxfam members.

Belgium? I can understand Bolivia needing some help, but Belgium?

Are there really so few government and university climate experts in Belgium that you guys have to include two Oxfam members in your official government delegation? For shame, Belgium. Let those buggers pay their own way, why should the Belgian taxpayer have to stay home and pay for the Oxfam champagne and taxis and hotel rooms?

In total, Oxfam has no less than nine people in various official government delegations. World Resources Institute have two people in official country delegations, as does the Rainforest Alliance. Nature Conservancy and 350.org each have one. And then there are a host of small, local country NGO’s represented in various official government delegations.

Their numbers all pale next to the perennial Oscar winner, the group who almost always wins the Best Actor Award for their long-running mocumentary film series “Activists Pretending to be Scientists”, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). They have no less than fourteen WWF members masquerading as government delegates.

NGOs are not the only offenders in this regard. UNDP people seem to like to party. In addition to the official UNDP delegation, there are eight UNDP employees among the official country delegations.

The oddities don’t end there. Lebanon’s country delegation of 12 people includes the Head of Carbon Sales and Trading of the Standard Bank Plc.

India has four public school students in their delegation, along with the German AID representative.

The Ghana delegation includes someone described as a technician working for the Japan Broadcasting Corp.

Indonesia has someone from the Zoological Society of London.

Papua New Guinea has a representative from the Carbon War Room Corporation.

Italy has four members of the Euro-Mediterranean Center for Climate Change, and one bodyguard.

Ireland has a representative from the “Mary Robinson Foundation for Climate Justice”.

Grenada has two people from Climate Analytics GmbH, which seems to be a company whose business is to provide advice to countries on how to scam the carbon markets.

The overall winner has to be Guinea-Bissau. Their country delegation has 19 people. Only five of them seem to work for the Guinea-Bissau government. The delegation appears to be headed by a man who styles himself as:

Association member, Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association

Dang, that’s a hard one to overtop. The Guinea-Bissau  delegation also contains a man from the Global Environment Fund, a host of people with no given affiliation, the International Project Director, Awareness and Advocacy who works for the Centre for Climate Change and Environmental Studies, and mirabile dictu, someone whose affiliation is given simply as “Tianjin Police”.

I have put all of these oddities, along with many people with no given affiliation, in the category “Unknown”. My quick and unscientific analysis gave me the following counts of the actual as opposed to the nominal affiliations of the partygoers.

Figure 2. As in Figure 1, but with the NGO representatives and unknown people removed from the country delegations and placed in their own categories.

Six thousand official NGO representatives, including those masquerading as government representatives. Five thousand government delegates. Fifteen hundred media. A thousand mystery contestants, camp followers, and bodyguards. The beauty parlor is filled with sailors, the circus is in town, and the NGO folks outnumber everyone else.

Please, Congress, please, can we defund these climate parties? We’ve spent millions of dollars and burned millions of litres of jet fuel to haul these parasites to their annual party on some lovely tourist beach somewhere, Rio one year, Cancun the next, Bali the next.

The only thing we’ve gotten from them in return is fraud, waste, and mismanagement. Now, these unelected agenda-driven folks are agitating to tax a host of transactions worldwide. Congresspersons, could we ring the bell on this dangerous trend? International taxes enacted by the UN in any form are a very bad idea. Get rid of this band of thieves before they bankrupt us all.

w.

PS—The official data on the partygoers is available as Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. My thanks to Ecotretas for the info.