Dr. Richard North of the EU Referendum sends word of this new revelation. North and Christopher Booker were the first to point out the money trail with Pachauri. Now the have followed the money on IPCC’s “Amazongate” all the way to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Here’s an excerpt from both.
Appearing in the Booker column is an account of how the “conservation” group WWF hopes to turn Amazonian trees into billions of dollars, all in the name of saving the planet. The background briefing on which Booker relied is posted below, detailing how the rainforests are to become a monstrous cash-making machine.
The Amazon – a “green gold-rush”
The WWF and other green campaign groups talking up the destruction of the Amazon rainforests are among those who stand to make billions of dollars from the scare. This “green gold-rush” involves taking control of huge tracts of rainforest supposedly to stop them being chopped down, and selling carbon credits gained from carbon dioxide emissions they claim will be “saved”.
Backed by a $30 million grant from the World Bank, the WWF has already partnered in a pilot scheme to manage 20 million acres in Brazil. If their plans get the go-ahead in Mexico at the end of the year, the forests will be worth over $60 billion in “carbon credits”, paid for by consumers in “rich” countries through their electricity bills and in increased prices for goods and services.
The prospect of a billion-dollar windfall explains the sharp reaction to the “Amazongate” scandal, in which the IPCC falsely claimed that up to 40 percent of the rainforest could be at risk from even a slight drop in rainfall.
Here, the IPCC was caught out again making unsubstantiated claims based on a WWF report. But unlike the “Glaciergate” affair where its claim that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 was conceded to be an “error”, the IPCC stood firm on its Amazon claim, stating that the assertion was “correct”. What makes the difference is that there is no serious money locked into melting glaciers. Amazonian trees, however, are potentially worth billions.
In standing its ground, the IPCC was strongly supported by the WWF, and by Daniel Nepstad, a senior scientist from the US Woods Hole Research Centre. Relying on an assiduously fostered reputation as a leading expert on the effects of climate change in the Amazon rainforests, Nepstad – who works closely with the WWF – posted on the Centre’s website a personal statement endorsing “the correctness of the IPCC’s statement”. Bizarrely, his own research failed in any way to substantiate the claim.
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Read the rest of this entry at the EU Referendum here
Also see the Booker column in the Telegraph
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The leader is (21:29:59) :
World Wildlife Fund WWF’s Board of Trustees 2009
The President of the trust
His Majesty Carl XVI Gustaf King of Sweden
This is the Swedish branch. The international and other national branches have separate governance.
The leader is (21:29:59) :
You’ve got that completely wrong. That is the Swedish WWF, not the world organization.
AGW-Skeptic99 (22:59:57) :
No grapes have ever been grown on Greenland. What was grown there during the MWP was barley, and it was only marginally possible according to contemporary sources. Still that implies a considerably warmer climate than today.
Incidentally there is some archaeological evidence that grapes were actually grown in Norway during the Viking Period, which would also imply a significantly warmer climate.
So now it’s rain instead of loggers and farmers.
Better get those carbon credits out there!
But here’s another idea… If the loggers and farmers are allowed to cut trees down, there would be less competition in the environment for water. Cut down the towering old ones. The rest will thank you for it!
Not that the rainforest hasn’t had droughts in the past. I don’t know for certain, but perhaps in those drier times, a big fire would clear enough trees so that the rest could survive. Or maybe the dry, unfit trees, whatever their age, just drop dead. I don’t know, but I do not imagine that nature has little work to do in the rainforest when it comes to balancing things out.
So no matter what we do or don’t, there will always be that. So why bother cutting man’s actions out of the cycle? Heck, if anything, we help alleviate the conditions for forest fires and the greater ravages of drought within the natural cycle. At the same time, people profit. Everything benefits!
DirkH (17:21:32) :
The scheme you envisage bares no resemblence to the REDD schemes being planned.
Consider this:
REDD aims to make a difference. It wouldn’t make much difference if it spent $60 billion to conserve just 20 million acres. REDD won’t pay the value of carbon being stored in the forests, instead it will pay a relatively small amount of money to make it more profitable to retain the forest than convert it to alternative uses.
If REDD would pay $60 billion for a 20 million acres, every speculator would now be buying land in Amazonia. They would be mad not to.
This seems appropriate here: click
A very inventive way to double your money. Lock in the capital yet have 60 Billion to spend on what ever salary raises and bonuses for the scheme.
No wonder big busines is loving this. The consumer will be paying for this in the end as new environmental taxes.
I should be wearing an iron plated diaper.
Louis Hissink (17:59:42) :
“Holdren, Schneider, Mead, Wellwood (sic!), and the WHRC are part of Mead’s 1975 conference in the US.”
Thanks … Holdren, Schneider and Woodwell – the unholy trinity! These people are under the radar. They don’t have the profile of the likes of Al Gore or Mike Mann, but they are the intellectual powerhouse – the Praetorian Guard, if you like – of warmism. These people are the real power behind the movement, and need to be outed.
Richard Telford (02:55:42) :
DirkH (17:21:32) :
The scheme you envisage bares no resemblence to the REDD schemes being planned.
Consider this:
REDD aims to make a difference. It wouldn’t make much difference if it spent $60 billion to conserve just 20 million acres. REDD won’t pay the value of carbon being stored in the forests, instead it will pay a relatively small amount of money to make it more profitable to retain the forest than convert it to alternative uses.
If REDD would pay $60 billion for a 20 million acres, every speculator would now be buying land in Amazonia. They would be mad not to.
=======================
Richard,
Your last paragraph is about right and the article on the EUReferendum web site suggests that certain invited (so to speak) big players may be doing just that by proxy and without the adverse publicity a direct attempt at purchase may attract.
So, since you write like you know something of the REDD project (and those associated with it I assume?) in some detail you have a perfect opportunity and platform here to pick the piece apart detail by detail. Why not go for it so that any discrepancies of understanding can be brought into the open and settled along the way?
Thisis important. Despite what some in authority seem to believe you cannot get blood of taxation out of a public reduced to stone. The response to the financial crisis seems to have been to increase taxation and prices led by big government and big banking closely followed by big energy, all riding on the green bandwagon. Once they have soaked up a nation’s and perhaps a culture’s ‘free cash’ spending power where will they turn next?
Who, exactly, benefits from any form of carbon trading (other than those trading) and what do they get for their cash? Give me something that is ‘guaranteed’, not some form of legalised ponzi scheme added to all of Big Government’s other similar schemes.
So there you are – make your case in support of REDD, et al, and explain the benefits in sound economic terms on which you would be prepared, if asked, to stake your future earnings, pension and living standards as a pledge to be forfeit, in total, if you are wrong. That’s the challenge. I’ll tick the notify box and await your answer. Convince me.
Is it worth pointing out that a rain forest is not a carbon sink so you cannot sell carbon credits by simply keeping it as it is? A rain forest is carbon dioxide neutral. The carbon dioxide taken in by the trees comes from rotting vegetation and the animals that live in the forest. It is a true ecosystem. If it were a carbon sink it would be expanding sideways or upwards which it is not doing.
Anyhoo, I have a couple of trees in my garden. If I promise not to cut them down can I sell the carbon credits for them. If not why not?
AGW is not going away. The UK government taxes vehicles on how much carbon dioxide they produce. If the gov admits that AGW is wrong their justification for taxation vanishes. Ergo, it will not happen. Concentrate on exposing WWF.
Henry chance (12:27:25) + Cassandra King (13:05:14) + Roger Carr (18:12:55)
Transparency International (search enron)
http://www.transparency.org/global_priorities/international_conventions/conventions_instruments/uncac
The hyperlink on TI ‘Website for updated information’ takes one to the UN site. ‘Signature/ratification status’ hyperlink lists parties and here can be viewed also (end of page) ‘Declarations and Reservations’.
The UN Convention Against Corruption (2004) Foreward [paragraph 1 & 2] is clearly written. http://www.unodc.org/documents/treaties/UNCAC/Publications/Convention/08-50026_E.pdf
“WWF is an extremely evil organization”
Totally agree.
The cruelty exhibited by the environmentalist movement knows no bounds. the global warming hoax in the West is cruel enough and financially crippling, but what about poor defenseless people in countries like Papua New Guinea who are being raped by the lies imposed on these people.
Environmetalism is all about cruelty and ego. I have yet to find a single environmentalist that gives a damn about the individual.
The WWF is the new Reich.
Here is an example of a WWF (or other related field such as carbon trading) paid activist pretending to be an innocent commenter on a news article:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6924113.ece
This is the comment:
“Hilary Ryder wrote:
Why doesn’t the Western world simply buy the rainforest they wish to preserve? I’ve no idea how much it sells for per hectare, but I’m damn sure you could buy a hell of a lot for $30 bn.Having bought it that would be the end of it, and the rainforest could simply be left as it is.
November 22, 2009 5:50 PM GMT”
amazongate is a myth:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/03/saleska-responds-green-is-green/
This is my first post. Mssrs. Booker, Watts, North et al should win the next nobel prize for really actually doing something so far reaching to save our planet. For 2-years I’ve followed their wonderful trail of detective work, exposing the scams and fundamentally flawed theory that the world is warming up. But no-one up there ever seems to listen – and my wife’s packet of Walkers cheese & onion crisps still says on the back that it produced 80 grammes of CO2. Why??????. Stood in our kitchen, I’m now drinking more beer and eating more bread to see if I can heat up our conservatory from the extra CO2 produced by yeast fermentation. Next Sunday we’re trying Marmite, kettle descaler, a container of decomposing peelings for the compost, Alka Seltzer, decaffeinated coffee and 7 x opened bottle of lemonade whilst eating ten tins of baked beans the night before – just to see if the massive amount of CO2 we produce will mean we can now safely turn the household heating down and the enormous carbon footprint will make the ice in our fridge/freezer ‘retreat’. But judging by the results so far, it’ll still be cold and the level of water in the kitchen sink will not rise to unprecedented levels after all. Still, perhaps DEFRA will give us a grant for our research and we’ll be headhunted by the non-profit making Carbon Trust.
Can’t wait. Keep up the good work Christopher.
Couldn’t leave a comment at the Telegraph site as it is currently closed, but this story strongly reminded me of the Golgafrincham’s in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. You know, the second raters from their own planet who are tricked into leaving on the B Ark to be crashed onto a new, unpopulated planet.
They adopt the leaf as their currency, following which they all becoming very rich but encounter something of an inflation problem…voodoo economics. The irony of course is that the planet turns out to be Earth and therefore the implication is that we are their descendants.
I’m shill-shocked!
Wilson Flood (05:06:15) :
REDD is a mechanism to reduce carbon emissions from tropical deforestation, not to enhance carbon sinks. So it wouldn’t matter if tropical rainforest were not a carbon sink. And actually it is probably is a sink, see Simon Lewis’ recent paper in Nature.
GP (04:53:45) :
That’s a challange that will take more than a few minutes to type out. I was at the Klimaforum in Copenhagen in December (not the main event in the Bella Centre). Presentation on REDD at klimaforum were mainly from a left wing prospective and were almost uniformly hostile.
davidmhoffer (16:37:06) :
So is there a methane credit scheme popping up somewhere? Because here’s the report to justify a tax on beef to fight global warming:
http://fixtheclimate.com/uploads/tx_templavoila/PP_Methane_Johansson_
——-
REPLY: You betcha!! Under the “Clean Development Mechanism” of the Kyoto Protocol, methane mitigation projects in developing nations were initiated to generate Certified Emission Reduction (CER) credits.
As a scientist with expertise in this area, I worked on manure treatment schemes in Brazil, Mexico, and the Philippines.
What can be cool about it is, by capturing the errant methane produced on these farms, they can generate all the electricity they need to run very remote feedlot operations. Our piggeries in the Philippines did this, it is amazing.
I’m an alternative energy guy who enjoys this work, and I’m sorry that the climate change bozos diluted the focus. One of my industrial clients (Fortune 100 company, you’ve eaten their products) treats their french-fry effluent in my methane digester, so we provide most of their boiler fuel by treating the organic pollution in the wastewater.
There IS some good stuff mixed in with the bad, life is never black & white. I support preservation of tropical forests for biodiversity sake; however, intelligent harvesting of wood can be done. WWF are as much alarmists as anyone.
Richard North (03:46:43)
“Thanks … Holdren, Schneider and Woodwell – the unholy trinity! These people are under the radar.”
George Woodwell was a founder of WHRC. He is currently a senior scientist and director emeritus at WHRCC:
http://www.whrc.org/about_us/whos_who/CV/gwoodwell.htm
George M. Woodwell
Professional Experience
•June 2005: Director Emeritus, Senior Scientist, Woods Hole Research Center
•1985 – 2005: President and Director, Woods Hole Research Center
•1975 – 1985: Deputy Director, Assistant Director for Education, Distinguished Scientist, Marine Biological laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Founder and Director, Ecosystems Center (MBL)
•1969 – 1975: Lecturer, Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Science
•1961 – 1975: Assistant Ecologist, Senior Ecologist, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Biology Department
•1957 – 1961: Assistant Professor of Botany, Associate Professor of Botany, University of Maine, Orono
Woodwell was also a founding trustee and continues to serve on the board of the Natural Resources Defense Council. He is a former chairman of the board of trustees and currently a member of the National Council of the World Wildlife Fund, a founding trustee of the World Resources Institute, a founder and currently an honorary member of the board of trustees of the Environmental Defense Fund, and former president of the Ecological Society of America.
It appears to me that Woodwell played a key role in creating the WWF/WHRC linkage. I also suspect that he was also instrumental in bringing John Holdren to WHRC.
ScientistForTruth (14:52:16) :
WWF is an extremely evil organization.
This is strident, AGW-type exaggeration. WWF is now a rather big corporate conservation organization trying to do many things for the “common good.” Some of these are entirely wrongheaded and misguided. But evil? The founding Chairman Sir Peter Scott, was neither a Nazi or a big game hunter. In fact he was an accomplished naturalist, author, painter and sailor.
WWF needs to reign in their “science” with objective peer review of studies published in their name. They spearhead the REDD concept (Reduced Emissions and Deforest) of rainforest conservation for political and financial reasons. They need the carbon trading scheme to finance payments to developing governments for forest protection. What is particularly wrongheaded in this approach is the demise of these trading instruments would collapse the payment structure. This has in fact happened recently with carbon offsets selling for .10 cents a ton instead of the $12.50 WWF projects.
Deforestation is a real and serious problem in rainforest nations. How to balance development that lifts indigenous people out of poverty and preservation of the land and forests is a major challenge. What WWF must do is find a financing mechanism that will encourage regular, fixed sponsorship/stewarding of forest preserves – NOT based on carbon trading.
Claims of WWF “genocide” are unfounded and way overreaching considering that a tract of rainforest legally removed from development, (a protected area) – effectively preserves the forest for people living in it. Should those people decide to clear, farm, develop that land (not usually practical) i.e. “use” the land, some accommodation must be made.
These are the real problems of conservation, pollution, land use, etc. that need funding and wisdom. WWF’s wholesale enlistment in the climate change game has deflected their resources into the CO2 house of cards. When that house collapses, the good efforts of many conservationists will suffer badly. Another example of how the hysterical AGW campaign has damaged reasoned environmentalism.
The $60B in carbon “credits” as an evaluation of protected Amazon forests is only practical if there is a market for CO2. As the market is based solely on unproven science and exaggeration – there is no market. When will the AGW gurus admit their errors and help honest conservationists succeed?
The WWF was set up as the funding arm of the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) who were involved with the start of the whole global warming scare under Maurice Strong at the United Nations. In 1996 President Clinton issued Executive Order 12986, which stated, in part: “I hereby extend to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources [IUCN] the privileges and immunities that provide or pertain to immunity from suit”
See: http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/GW_History.htm for details on all this.
socold (06:44:45) :
amazongate is a myth:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/03/saleska-responds-green-is-green/
That’s it? A drive-by posting where they quickly drop an Un-RealClimate link and flee?
Has the reputation of this site grown so fearsome that CAGW believers will no longer dare to stop and chat for a bit?
I blame this site’s high BS-to-knowledge conversion rate. WUWT is making too much sense way too fast, it’s scaring these believers away!
This is just a grab for the green cash, in all senses of the phrase.. This does nothing to ‘take’ carbon out of the cycle, it just sticks a big ‘carbon for sale’ sign on a piece of natural rain forest – it actually puts more back into it…
The whole carbon market will not function as advertised if one is able to put pieces of the natural system into the market for no additional effort or improvement in carbon storage ability – the inescapable rules of supply and demand will come into play & the price will drop through the floor – making carbon trading totally ineffective. But of course a lot of people will make a lot of money on the way to the floor.
My parents used to own 75 acres of forest. The only time they profited from the trees was when they signed a contract with a lumber company allowing them to thin the forest. Now persons and organizations owning forests will be able to profit simply by letting the trees stand. What a scam.
The acquisition of forests by persons and organizations with the intent of making a profit from carbon trading is going to come back and bite them. Cash strapped governments, looking for new sources of revenue and realizing the new increased value of standing trees will simply reappraise the value of forest land upward by a hundred-fold or more. As the appraisal goes, so goes the real estate taxes. If the forest is currently tax exempt, that can always be changed with the stroke of a pen. Governments know how to follow the money too.