Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
The US has some of the world’s most boring looking money—it’s all green. So we have terms like “greenbacks” for dollars, and “long green”, meaning lots of money.
I offer this as context for what I found when I got to wondering what had happened to the United Nations “Green Climate Fund”. You may recall that the Green Climate Fund was set up by the UN as the only result of the recent Rio de Janeiro Cancun conference on climate idiocy. When the Fund is going full throttle, it is supposed to disburse no less than $200 billion ($200,000,000,000) dollars each and every year to the developing countries.
It turns out that, unlike those of us skeptics who are falsely accused of receiving big bucks from big oil, the “Green Climate Fund” has already raked in millions of dollars to spend on fighting the evil forces of carbon. They have a catchy slogan, viz: “The urgency and seriousness of climate change call for ambition in financing adaptation and mitigation”. Ambition in financing? What’s not to like?
Now, I’ve worked for development organizations before. The rule of thumb is that no more than 15% of the funds should go for administration, the rest needs to go to the eventual intended recipients of the largesse.
So … how many of the millions of dollars that have been “donated” by taxpayers in a variety of countries have gone to the actual poor, to aid them in their battle against the dread CO2?
Let’s start how much money we’re talking about.
Here’s a list of the countries who are both rich and improvident enough to squander their taxpayers’ money on the Green Climate Fund. It’s the usual suspects, my condolences to their citizens who are paying for this:
Australia, $513,000
Denmark, $608,000
Finland, $648,000
France, $326,000
Japan, $500,000
Germany, $1,053,000
South Korea, $2,099,000
Netherlands, $286,000
Sweden, $752,000
UK, $770,000
TOTAL, $7,555,000
The Koreans put in two megabucks … but then, they also negotiated a deal where the Green Climate Fund is headquartered in Seoul. So no tears for them, they’ll make out like bandits. Landing a UN drone hive is like landing a money machine, the local landlords will be overjoyed.
Now, of course, $7.5 million, that’s a long ways from their goal of dispersing $200 billion per year. In fact, it’s about this far from their goal:
I see this as very good news—perhaps the countries of the world have figured out that they have better things to do with their money.
Anyhow, I started all of this out with a simple question. How much of the $7.5 million went to help the people it’s supposed to help?
Here’s the not-so-simple answer. When you do this kind of thing, first you have to hand out the plum jobs. Among those are the Members of the Board. Of course, then you have to pay for their travel, and a place for them to meet, for their meetings. And it turns out that three Board Meetings cost just under a million dollars. Expensive meetings. Very expensive meetings.
Oh, can’t forget the Board Committees, Panels, and Working groups. They cost just under four hundred thousand. Total, a million three …
The next round of plum jobs are the people who make up the “Interim Secretariat”. From the name, I take it that these folks are just placeholders until we get more parasites for the real Secretariat …in any case, there’s two million in the budget to hire fifteen people. My mathematics makes that $133,000 per person per year.
So one thing is clear. The UN Personnel came to do good for the poor … and they’re doing very well indeed. A hundred and thirty grand per person? You can see why the South Koreans will be the big winners in the deal.
It gets worse. They actually hire themselves to do the work, at incredible rates. For example, from the UN FCCC they are hiring one full-time and one part-time person, plus some administrative support … for a cool half million dollars. One and a half people. Half a megabuck.
And from the UN GEF, same deal, one full-time and one 60% time person, cost, another half million.
Now, you and I might be satisfied by that. But the UN folks are realists. They know that even if all those fifteen UN drones could somehow work together, they still couldn’t organize a booze-up in a frat house. For that, they always hire consultants. You know, people who can actually do the stuff the UN employees can only talk about.
So the Green Climate Fund has three-quarters of a million bucks in the budget for consultants, to make sure something gets done.
Oh, and did I mention $200,000 per year for the Executive Director?
Now, you gotta know that you can’t have fifteen pluted bloatocrats, plus 3.1 loan-drones from other UN agencies, and three-quarters of a million dollars worth of consultants, without renting some executive-type hive to house the worker bees. Plus phones and faxes and the like, that’s a million two …
Of course, you can’t do business by email, phone, and Skype. Gotta have a travel budget … three hundred grand.
Add all that up, and the “Interim Secretariat” costs $5.3 million …
Lastly, a Trust Fund needs an Interim Trustee. The Green Climate Fund hires that service from the World Bank for just under three-quarters of a million dollars per year … one trustee …IT costs … I can hardly believe it myself, but by a strange coincidence, what it costs them to run the Green Climate Fund adds up to … well … about seven and a half million dollars.
And that means that of the $7.5 million dollars donated by taxpayers all over the world, the people in the developing countries will get …
None.
Like I said, while I bemoan the waste of resources, I see all this as good news. Any country that takes a serious look at what’s happened to the first seven plus million that was donated to the Green Climate Fund will certainly have second thoughts about giving them money.
And that’s a good thing, because if they are this profligate with the first seven and a half million … can you imagine these same pack of over-fed fools in charge the dispensing of two hundred billion dollars to the developing world? I shudder to think of the waste, corruption, bribery, blackmail, and tribalism that would be involved in that kind of an industrial-scale goat-rope. The only people who’d be happy if that happened would be corrupt developing world leaders … and of course, Swiss bankers …
w.
DATA: I do give the GCF high marks for one thing: transparency. All relevant documents are here.
Well done, Willis!
I recall that Geneva lobbied heavily for the HQ, but lost out to Seoul. Perhaps Ban-Ki Moon pulled some strings. Geneva is lucky it failed — and Seoul will come to regret it.
History will not be kind to this movement.
Kurt in Switzerland
I need a job. Are they hiring?
A disgraceful example of how the progressive left reward themselves with other people’s money. Well done to Willis for exposing this – I won’t hold my breath for an in-depth expose of the Green Climate Fund by the BBC here in the UK; sadly the Corporation has very selective vision (and curiously inflexible standards of ‘journalistic excellence’) when it comes to criticising ‘the consensus’, no matter the scale of the debacle.
M Simon says:
October 27, 2013 at 11:54 pm
“I need a job. Are they hiring?”
Only if you are completely useless, corrupt, or both!
It’s good that this is exposed. Exposure is the only thing that’s going to wake people up and finally stop this massive corruption and waste. Countries have to learn to turn off the financing tap. This has to be done hard and fast and everywhere – before the pitchforks come out.
Phil Ford says:
October 28, 2013 at 12:05 am
Phil, you should be aware that 97% (or maybe 100%) of BBC staff think this is a great idea, so case proven by consensus!
Hi Willis
That pie Graph looks remarkably similar to one for co2 concentration. Your time in Britain obviously honed your satirical skills.
tonyb
In the US,only 10% of any foundation is required to go to the issue it supports. Think of that the next time you praise the generosity of the foundation owner.
Phil Ford
You can do what I’ve done and use the BBC web site to suggest they use Willis’ article as the basis for a news story. They won’t but planting seeds of doubt in one or two minds can do no harm.
In reply to and support of Willis’ piece.
“When the Fund is going full throttle, it is supposed to disburse no less than $200 billion ($200,000,000,000) dollars each and every year to the developing countries.”
Yes, the UN bureaucratic leaches will if there is any money left after their skimming will end the skimmed money to leaches in the third world who skim more and then will spend the skim reduced money on green scams that are 4 to 12 times more expensive than nuclear power plants not including the cost of storage which is required to reduce CO2 by more than about 15%. Storage increases the green scam cost by a factor of two or three. If CO2 was a problem not a benefit the biosphere and the planet was not about to significantly cool, nuclear is the only solution that works to achieve a CO2 emission of greater than 15%. The problem of course is the only thing the greens hate more than CO2 is nuclear power.
There is not a hope in Hades that this madness will continue. The developed countries have reached the limit of deficit financing are facing bankruptcy and currency collapse. It is strange when the money runs out, political support for madness dries up, as politicians are forced to make choices based on limited funds.
So let’s say that Bill Gates puts all his money in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. $56 billion. By law, he has to spend 10% of the income annually on the foundation’s projects. But the remainder is spent on the foundation’s assets, like this house, travel, meals, income for himself and his wife, children, his airplane. It’s all tax-free.
You and I praise his great generosity, as if he’s doing this for his conscience and his health.
Ok. We all know being a “denier” pays exactly nothing. How do you get any one of those jobs?
Greater than 97% of Green Climate Fund beneficiaries agree that the planet is in mortal peril from climate change.
Admittedly, I can’t substantiate this claim; but it seems quite reasonable, if a little conservative.
Its the UN at work , so no surprise at all . And chances are most of the appointments will be on the grounds of ‘politics’ not ability so it still may be a total mess as so many UN bodies are , i.e the IPCC
All this and no corporate logo yet according to the page shown! That’s another million of you want to play with the big boys.
Perhaps a new, improved slogan for the Green Climate Fund could read:
‘Who needs Big Oil?’
As soon as I saw the words “usual suspects” I just knew the UK would be in there somewhere. And… yes. You know, if there was an Olympic event for throwing money away on a grand scale, we’d win gold every time – and then sell off our medals for a pittance.
SandyInLimousin: As you say, the chances of the BBC picking up this story (clearly well worth a serious journalistic investigation if only half of it turns out to be true) are virtually nil. If it doesn’t fit the CAGW narrative (or, worse, threatens to expose the deception beneath), it’s not news. Shocking, really, when you think about it. Why am I still surprised by this kind of thing?
Any chance of a US news outlet taking the story and doing some more rooting about..?
It is no news. It is standard operating procedure not just in UN but a number of NGOs who are concerned with the welfare of the developing world. You must subtract the overhead and wastage of the NGOs who will be recipient of what is left of the funds. What is unusual is the very small amount that have been collected so far for such a high sounding and noble program. It should be going up at anytime soon once the political consensus on the staffing and operating procedure are threshed out. Some of the notable absences are Norway, New Zealand, Spain, Italy, Canada and of course the USA. USA is quite active with the UNFCCC.
That’s why I never give to big charities, they are nearly all the same!
“Perhaps Ban-Ki Moon pulled some strings. ”
Oh, you’re not suggesting the Rt. Hon Gen. Sec Banky Moon could have applies some influence to favour his home country are you. Preposterous.
Seoul seems such an obvious venue for such a fund I’m sure it has nothing to do with him being korean.
BTW, why is the usual western transliteration of his name spelt Ki, would Ban-ky give the game away?
Great post Willis. Like you are regard this as good news. I thought it was far worse than that already.
Don’t give up on the BBC so easily, there is something changing. You can now make a science program without a single mention of CAGW and CAGW sceptics get air time if topical. The Government is making noises about cutting BBC funding and they are also back tracking on their green commitment. If the BBC doesn’t switch sides on global warming before the governing coalition go their separate ways, it will be too late to embarrass the Conservatives.
OK so it seems that they have managed to cover most of their overheads and so I am quite sure that just as soon as they receive another fat cheque they will be ready to start disbursing funds…..
Yessirree!!
Any minute now….
In Oz recently, our profligate ex-government spent $4.6M to redesign the logo of our major welfare organisation, Centrelink. Not because they changed their name but because other organisations were placed under their name.
Trying to get anything done by Centrelink is fraught with long queues, slow responses and oft-duplicated form-filling. No money for more staff but lots for a new logo, no doubt recommended by a consultant.
Not surprisingly, none of the Ministers of the then government will admit to approving the expenditure.
Ok that is the first year taken care of. What happens in the 2nd year?
These figures relate to the first year only, who is going to pay for the next year and the next and the next…I wait, I know.
Let me hazard a guess that if anyone with media clout started investigating the accounts they might not be quite so available all of a sudden. And if the figures involved rise into the hundreds of millions, let alone billions then the accounts will be sealed tighter than the UEA data vault.
Thanks a lot, Willis, for this devastating report. In my country of Norway, the former social democrat government were eager supporters of this fund, so it is a bit strange to see that Norway is not on the donor list. Anyway, I have on several native websites asked the question about what became of this highly hyped fund (at least in my country), without getting any answers, so it is great to have this overview.
Actually, I thought the aim of the fund was to have 100 billion dollars by 2020. To be able to hand out 200 billion per year seems too much for any fund in the world. Is this really what they expect as a fund surplus? In that case, the capital of the fund must be beyond my calculator. Or did you mix up fund capital with surplus to be distributed? 200 billion handed out every year, that seems just about impossible. Unless a fresh sum of the same size is pumped in every year also. But could even the UN imagine such a money flow?
But it is really great to have these figures, and not least to see how the money is already put to work for the “good cause”. Thanks again.
I hope you can read, or translate, this Dansih article.
http://politiken.dk/politik/ECE2095767/forargede-politikere-loekke-maa-forklare-luksusrejser-for-bistandspenge/
http://climatereason.wordpress.com/
My thoughts exactly, just a mere matter of order of magnitude & decimal point shifting! 4/100ths of 4/10,000ths & all that!
… pluted bloatocrats…
Priceless!
Someone here used a term that fits this coterie of parasites: The Porkoisie. Perfect.
“Any country that takes a serious look at what’s happened to the first seven plus million that was donated to the Green Climate Fund will certainly have second thoughts about giving them money.”
I had not previously taken Mr. Eschenbach for a slow learner.
If you are serious about putting up an organaization that in say ten years is to spend $200000000000 annualy I say using 7550000 in the first year is frugal, probably irresponsible. Willis rule of thumb is 15% to overhead on a well run development program. Now that would be $30000000000 each and every year, 4000 times what they spent in their first year when they obviously incur a lot of start up expenses.
The good news as I see it they cant be serious, had they really expected to have a lot of money coming in after a treaty in 2015 they would have expanded faster. They didn’t have more money to spend you say? Well, their credit is obviously no good. 😉
Thanks to Willis for digging it up and thanks for UN transparency that made this relatively easy. If only the Scientific community had been held to these standards.
As a tip, why dont look into a very similar fund, the https://www.adaptation-fund.org/ . It’s up and running, sited in Germany and claims: “Over the past three years, the fund has dedicated more than US$ 190 million to increase climate resilience in 28 countries around the world.”
They also explain how they get their money:
“Under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), emission-reduction projects in developing countries can earn certified emission reduction (CER) credits. These credits can be traded and sold by industrialized countries to meet a part of their emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol. Financing for the Adaptation Fund comes mainly from sales of certified emission reductions. The share of proceeds amounts to 2 per cent of the value of CERs issued each year for CDM projects.
The fund also receives contributions from governments, the private sector, and individuals.”
Unfortunately for this fund CERs have been cheap for a long period so 2% is no longer what it was expected to be.
To ConTrari: This fund has received more coverage in Norway than the “Green Climate Fund”, you can find a long list of Projects partyally paid with Norwegian climate indulgence payments (=your money)
A couple of sets of numbers I would like to see – and, of course, broken down into individual categories – is just how much is spent annually on the bureaucracies, consultants, facilitators and other parasitic hangers on in the UN and EU.
So much money for so many pointless people.
Nothing makes me madder than the incredible waste in foreign aid programs and how little gets to the people they are supposed to target. These aid organisations are mostly ‘run’ by people who would be unemployable in the private sector.
However, in this instance it may just be an indication that the days of governments publicly waving their green credentials, and pouring vast amounts of unaccountable funds towards those wallowing around in the troughs of climate environmentalism, are coming to an end. If they want to wave their green credentials, then no problem from me, but for God’s sake don’t do anything more to support these utterly pointless causes.
John Trigge says:
October 28, 2013 at 2:15 am
In Oz recently, our profligate ex-government spent $4.6M to redesign the logo of our major welfare organisation, Centrelink. Not because they changed their name but because other organisations were placed under their name.
Trying to get anything done by Centrelink is fraught with long queues, slow responses and oft-duplicated form-filling. No money for more staff but lots for a new logo, no doubt recommended by a consultant.
Not surprisingly, none of the Ministers of the then government will admit to approving the expenditure.
=================================
and so after that spending spree?
todays news has then considering Auspost offices to handle centrelink?
people who cant handle our mail on time?
getting access and control of seriously personal info?
oh thats clever isnt it?
if we thought c-link was bad it could get SO much worse.
Willis, I think there are a few changes you may want to make. The establishment of the GCF actually preceded the June 2012 Rio+20 shindig by a few years:. Although I don’t doubt for a moment that it may well have been mentioned in the Rio “outcome document”.
According to the intro to “draft arrangements“:
COP 16, was the 2010 session of the UNFCCC, held in Cancun. So, Cancun or Rio … well, they’re both South of the border down Mexico Way:-)
Anyway, at COP 17 (2011 in Durban, unless I’m mistaken), in the UNFCCC documentation (FCCC/CP/2011/9/Add.1), under the topic of Long Term Finance, one finds:
Btw, they also allocated $200K for an “Executive Search” firm to assist in the recruitment of an Executive Director (whose salary may or may not be the $200K you mention above). But, in June of this year, the GCF Board did settle on: Ms. Hela Cheikhrouhou “as the Fund’s first Executive Director” (although she didn’t “officially” take up this position until early September).
Not sure where you got the $200 billion from. I haven’t looked at all the Board Minutes, so it’s entirely possible that the Board – or the Interim Secretariat, or someone else behind the scenes – decided to up the ambition ante, so to speak!
But the above suggests to me that expenditures to date may well be indicative that things may well be, well, far worse than you might have thought!
As you state, Willis – credit for their transparency.
Can’t help but note their circular irony:-
“Travel Arrangements – Carbon offset
41. The Fund will adopt a scheme of special funding for offsetting carbon emissions based on an approach proposed by the Secretariat and approved by the Board.”
@sigmundb wrote:
“To ConTrari: This fund has received more coverage in Norway than the “Green Climate Fund”, you can find a long list of Projects partyally paid with Norwegian climate indulgence payments (=your money)”
Well, in my view the GCF was heralded loudly by the previous prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, who also expressed a strong will to help establishing the capital. So it seems strange that Norway is not on the donor list. That we contribute to aother climate funds does not surprise me. There’s a lot of that going on, mostly without any mention in the media or any quality check.
What’s a few measly million bucks spent by dedicated people who are out there daily fighting to save the third world and the planet? Sooner or later a few bucks will accidentally be spent on the deserving poor along with great fanfare.
Policycritic
Re: The Gates Foundation
These are serious and shocking revelations. Do you have a link or other information about this horrible waste of the Gates’ own money?
Willis, if Australia’s moronic “climate change” political parties aka the Greens & Labor get back in, this mob of charlatans aka the Green Climate Fund will be rolling in it. But thank you for warning my countrymen. Maybe some of them will listen and think for themselves.
Well, this is really pathetic.
The $200 billion per target just started getting talked about this summer, people just making it up it seems. The official number is still $100 billion per year.
But what is truly a surprising amount, is the funds spent in 2012 on climate change (renewable energy, energy efficiency, adaptation to climate change and climate research).
A cool $359 billion.
U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres said it needs to be $ 1.0 trillion per year.
What a waste of resources. On the good side, it is only 0.5% of world GDP and it was down slightly from last year.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/22/climate-investment-idUSL5N0IB32X20131022
thanx for detailing this, Willis.
heard the following on BBC Radio a day or two ago, also boasting how it means Ethiopia can EXPORT energy to its neighbours. sounded like an extravagant claim to me, but what do i know. can’t find any BBC link. however, it would be interesting if someone with the expertise could explain the economics of the project, what the loans mean in real terms, etc:
28 Oct: BusinessSpectator: Reuters: Ethiopia opens Africa’s largest wind farm
Africa’s biggest wind farm began production in Ethiopia on Saturday, aiding efforts to diversify electricity generation from hydropower plants and help the country become a major regional exporter of energy.
The Horn of Africa country – plagued by frequent blackouts – plans to boost generating capacity from 2,000 MW to 10,000 MW within the next three to five years, much of it coming from the 6,000 MW Grand Renaissance Dam under construction on the Nile.
The plan also consists of raising wind power generation to more than 800 MW and geothermal capacity to less than 100 MW.
The 210 million euro ($US289.68 million) Ashegoda Wind Farm was built by French firm Vergnet SA with concessional loans from BNP Paribas and the French Development Agency (AFD). The Ethiopian government covered 9 per cent of the cost…
Experts put Ethiopia’s hydropower potential at around 45,000 MW and geothermal at 5,000 MW, while its wind power potential is believed to be Africa’s third-largest behind Egypt and Morocco…
Groundbreaking for the Ashegoda Wind Farm was done in 2009 with completion set for 2011 but logistical constraints delayed its finish. It is the second such project in the country after the 51 MW Adama I wind farm, which began production in 2011.
“Ethiopia might have one of the most impressive investment plans in renewable energy in Africa,” Vergnet’s site manager Roman Coutrot told Reuters.
“It’s not only talking, they are acting and signing contracts. The problem they might face is financing but they are not worried about that,” he said…
Last week, Ethiopia also signed a preliminary agreement with a U.S.-Icelandic firm for a $US4 billion private sector investment intended to tap its vast geothermal power resources and produce 1000 MW from steam.
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/news/2013/10/28/wind-power/ethiopia-opens-africas-largest-wind-farm
When are these damn developing countries going to be developed? Seems like they’ve been “developing” all my life.
You are not factoring in the cost of unpaid parking fines racked up by UN personnel. See here . The table at the end is eye-opening. from 1997 to 2002 UN diplomats in New York City racked up violations per diplomat ranging from a high of 246 (Kuwait: 9 diplomats), 140 (Egypt: 24 diplomats), 124 (Chad: 2 diplomats), 119 (Sudan: 7 diplomats) 118 (Bulgaria: 6 diplomats) down to those perrenial boring goody-goodies like UK, Canada, Netherlands, UAE, Australia, Azerbaijan, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Columbia, Denmark, Ecuador, Sweden Greece, Ireland, Israel, Jamaca, Japan, Latvia, Norway, Oman, Panama and Turkey who all had 0 unpaid parking violations. Japan has the largest UN delegation (47) with no unpaid tickets; UK comes in second with 33. Dominican Republic, Finland, Guatemala, New Zealand and Switzerland all get honorable mentions for having only 0.1 unpaid violations per diplomat.
Zimbabwe, which under the inspiring leadership of Robert Mugabe has gone from being Africa’s largest food exporter to unable to feed her own population, can nonetheless maintain a staff of 14 diplomats at the UN racking up an average of 45.6 unpaid parking violations each. This notable effort only earned them 18th place in this dubious distinction.
As of May 2011, Foreign missions owed NYC $17 million in unpaid parking tickets. One wonders how many other bills these cossetted diplomats leave unpaid. There are almost certainly secondary costs due to the example set for the rest of New Yorkers, encouraging other violations.
Somebody will make out like a bandit under this Green Climate Fund, but I don’t think it will be the good citizens of Seoul.
Thanks for an excellent article Willis. I feel quite depressed now, not that any of it is really surprising. Unfortunately, discovering things going on that are depressing is part of the price one pays for not signing up to the Alarmists’ happy-clappy bandwagon.
John Law says:
October 28, 2013 at 12:19 am
M Simon says:
October 27, 2013 at 11:54 pm
“I need a job. Are they hiring?”
Only if you are completely useless, corrupt, or both!
=======================
OK, I can do useless. I’ll have to work on corrupt, but I have high hopes in that direction.
cheers,
gary
Suggestion for South Korea:
Put in two million additional dollars, on the condition the Green Climate Fund headquarters be relocated to North Korea. It will be cheaper for you in the long run and all those green “pluted bloatocrats” might as well get a first hand look at where their energy policies will lead.
There will be savings for the rest of us also, as I suspect fewer and smaller NGO delegations will be junketing off to spend a fun-filled week in luxurious Pongyang.
“UN drone hive” – great expression, Willis. Spot on.
Who audits these thieves?
If this part of the project broke even, I am shocked. Willis, are you sure there is no deficit?
My Drill Sgt used another word for this sort of thing, also involving goats, that one doesn’t use in polite company. An alternative he would sometimes use substituted the word “cluster” for “goat”.
policycritic says:
October 28, 2013 at 12:36 am
So let’s say that Bill Gates puts all his money in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. $56 billion. By law, he has to spend 10% of the income annually on the foundation’s projects. But the remainder is spent on the foundation’s assets, like this house, travel, meals, income for himself and his wife, children, his airplane. It’s all tax-free.
You and I praise his great generosity, as if he’s doing this for his conscience and his health.
***************************************************************************************************************
Talk about speaking out your backside. IT IS HIS MONEY, not yours or anyone else’s. HE earned it. (The foundation also gets funds from Warren Buffet.)
Here is their financial information link. http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/General-Information/Financials.
While I live in the Seattle area, I have no financial link to Bill Gates, other than the software I am currently using. Which software do you use?
Since ALL the money is in believing the great AGW god – I’m tempted to switch and finally get those Petro dollars I am been accused of receiving. Tempted but I won’t.
It is simply organized crime, racketeering.
The Climate Brick Road Song, all you need to know about the scam. I love it:
Ya gotta love the Korean angle to this. What can I say about a country that had to bring in laws that make student tutorial centers shut down at midnight? They know what is important (math, sciences, etc) and work crazy hard to achieve. So we have the math-challenged UN and a very math-competent Korea working out a deal? Gee, I wonder who will get the best of it?
🙂
policycritic says:
October 28, 2013 at 12:36 am
You’re misconstruing one the provisions of the tax code. A recognized tax-exempt instutution cannot just sit on its endowment and accumulate income forever; it must actually spend money on the activities which qualify it for tax-exempt status. I am not acquanted with the details of those provisions, but I have previously seen them described as a percentage of the total endowment value, not a percentage of the endowment income.
Nothing in the tax code prevents a foundation from spending more than the minimum amount.
The efficiency of a tax-exempt organization is a separate issue. Organizations which watch this sort of thing have a guideline that anything over 33% overhead is excessive for a national charity. It’s interesting that this page lists among those with 20-30% administrative overhead (which is considered large, but not excessive):
American Red Cross keeps administrative overhead to 5% and spends over 92% of their income on actual programs. The Charity Navigator site has no rating for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation because:
So I have no idea how efficient they are.
I’m betting the documents won’t be available for long…
Oh the irony — the money raised matches the percentage of CO2 of the atmosphere. Lets hope, unlike the rest of AGW, it stays in line with reality.
Willis has just given them ideas. They may now plan to take 15% of 200 Billion for office costs. 🙂
Very little of this imaginary 200 Billion will ever get to those who need it. Other offices will be set up to dispense the cash locally – they will need their cut, and so will the local politicians, contract inflators etc.
Being inquisitive i decided to check out Hela Cheikhrouhou. After all, I am single and desirous of a wife who could possibly support me in a lifestyle to which I would like to become accustomed. Well, I find out that she was an investment banker with Citibank. Word to the wise: you may wish to marry an investment banker but you certainly don’t want to work for one. Do the terms; right sizing, downsizing, restructuring, ring a bell? Moreover, has one ever heard the description, ‘corporate raider’? Rest assured, that in many cases the definition of investment banker and corporate raider can be synonymous.
Then there’s her Citibank connection to investment bankering. In 2007 I lost my job for medical reasons and immediately applied for Social Security disability. Well, following his win in 2008, Barack Obama started, what I recall was called, ‘The Making Home Affordable’ program. It was in response to the popped housing bubble following the 2008 recession and was a scheme through which underwater mortgage holders could get favorable refi’s. With an $1,100/month mortgage and SS disability income I certainly qualified. A years worth of paperwork to no avail, then 2 1/2 years later, I suddenly received an unsolicited refinance from Citibank, the holder of my mortgage. Let’s see, that was October of 2012. Who was fighting for his life for re-election? Was that vote held one month later in November 2012? Coincidence? Hmm.
Then there’s our new Treasury Secretary, Jack Lew. Didn’t he run Citibank’s offshore Cayman Islands’ accounts?
So, all of this begs a question: Why in the hell did the GCF spend 200K on an ‘Executive Search Firm’ to find an Executive Director, Hela Cheikhrouhou, who was always in plain view as part of this network anyway? I’m hoping to marry into money but even I wouldn’t spend 200K for the privilege. And certain not if I had always been a suitor anyway. But, then again, with someone else’s money?
ConTrari says:
October 28, 2013 at 2:35 am
Thanks, Con. According to the Fund website, Norway has promised money, but so far none has been actually provided … so there’s hope for you yet.
w.
Sigmundb says:
October 28, 2013 at 3:33 am
If you think that they will actually be distributing $200,000,000,000 per year in say ten years, you are not serious.
And in any case, the Fund is disbursing nothing now, every penny is going for overheads, so they have no money in trust … and despite that they paid three quarters of a million for an “Interim Trustee”. He sits around and does … exactly what for that huge salary? Watches over the non-existent fund?
You want irresponsible? There it is.
Nor does the future look good, thankfully. In lieu of the chimeric two hundred billion per year, they have a million and a half in pledges and THAT’S IT at this point … and at their current burn rate, that will last one-fifth of a year.
And your business advice is that they should spend every penny they have on salaries and rent, in fact you say that not doing so would be irresponsible? Really?
My business advice would be that as with any organization, they should wait on the excess spending until they actually know that they need the personnel and the services and the office space. They should start lean, with only a few salaries and a smallish office. They should contract for specialty services sparingly, and then only as and when they are necessary.
Then they should take at least some of the seven and a half million, say half of it, and make a number of small grants with it. See what kind of problems they encounter in the process. Use that as a learning experience to guide them in the types of challenges that they will encounter on the way, and the types of people that they would need to hire to meet those challenges.
That way, they could be well on the road to doing what they were set up to do … rather than endlessly and expensively setting up to do it.
This is important because the money isn’t going to magically appear. They will have to prove themselves. The good news is that prospective donor countries will look at the waste and profligate spending and go “Sorry, got better things to do with $200 billion than blow it on parasitic rent-seekers”.
Look, Sigmund, this UN cluster-fark has been going on for two years now. Not one country has put up anything even getting close to one-hundredth of one lousy billion, and every dime that they’ve put up has been wasted. I’m willing to bet good money that the Green Climate Fund will never disburse $200 billion in a single year, and I’m overjoyed that that is the case.
Heck, I’d even bet that they won’t disburse that amount over the entire lifetime of the fund.
Regards,
w.
Oh, yeah, the basis for my business advice above?
Among much other business-related work in my life, my previous job was as the Chief Financial Officer of a very successful company with $40 million dollars in annual sales …
w.
Bob Greene says:
October 28, 2013 at 4:19 am
What’s a few measly million bucks spent by dedicated people who are out there daily fighting to save the third world and the planet? Sooner or later a few bucks will accidentally be spent on the deserving poor along with great fanfare.
_________________________________________
“Saving the third world…” Absolutely! Can’t let it disappear! One can’t hold station if everybody has the same capacity to be rich and/or privileged. That was tried by allowing the middle class to flourish, but look how they turned out: multiple cars, homes, kids to college, retirement! A correction for that by other well-intentioned pluted bloatocrats is well underway. Its a full-time job and a calling to work tirelessly and without pecuniary gain to save the natural hierarchy.
Hilary Ostrov (aka hro001) says:
October 28, 2013 at 3:43 am
Thanks, Hilary. I’ve changed the head post to reflect that. Cancun, Rio … I wonder which resort town they’ll grace next.
w.
As several people mentioned, the Gates Foundation is private, and don’t have to open their books, so we don’t know how much goes to overheads.
We have indirect information, however, from the Gates Foundation rules for how their own grant monies can be used, which are here. Inter alia they say:
“Indirect cost rates for grants and contracts are subject to the following limitations:”
NGOs: up to 15%
Schools and colleges: up to 10%
Governmental agencies, for-profit organizations: up to 0%
They also note:
w.
The UN Climate Drama Queen weighs in on the subject … from Reuters, emphasis mine:
A trillion a year? Whatever she’s drinking, I want some …
w.
Regarding the manifold challenges thankfully facing the Green Climate Fund, there’s an interesting paper here. Inter alia they discuss the problem I pointed out above—what incentives does any country have to choose this fund over one of the many, many others?
w.
Willis writes:
“…U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres said most of the money needed to combat climate change would have to come from the private sector.”
Most of the money? Ms Figueres doesn’t understand that all of the money comes from the private sector?
I’ll have some of what she’s drinking, too.
At least when Exxon made its name change they squandered only the stockholders’ money.
For the benefit of potential respondents who may be confused; the GCF and the GFC are two different things!
I didn’t see anyone point out the other end of this transfer:
“When the Fund is going full throttle, it is supposed to disburse no less than $200 billion ($200,000,000,000) dollars each and every year to the developing countries.”
…and by “developing countries”, they mean exclusively the bank accounts of the crooks who control the governments of said countries.
“Green Climate Fund”
These guys are pikers compared to how the UN and their cronies were involved with the “Oil for Food” program.
Way to go Willis.
Apparently these stingy, self-serving b*st*rds couldn’t find it in their hard hearts even to give a plugged poisha to some semi-naked beggar on a corner in Chittagong, Bangladesh – if they ever had the balls to go there.
I am glad to not see Canada in the list of shmucks,
Willis, I agree that American money is boring. All the same colour, all the same size. However, from the kindness of my heart, and as an expression of the great admiration I have for your work, I am prepared to take over the boredom of as much money as you care to send me. How about a couple of million for starters?
Chipotle says:
October 28, 2013 at 4:32 pm
Indeed, Chipotle. And this fund goes further than others. Foolishly, it doesn’t always give the funds to the project itself. Or at least it won’t if it ever gets around to disbursing funds.
It’s willing (under certain conditions) to disburse the funds directly to the country, rather than to the project. The opportunities for theft, corruption, embezzlement, misappropriation, and garden-variety loss are greatly enhanced under that plan … which of course is why the developing countries have fought so hard to change the rules to allow that. It lets them dip even deeper into the funds.
Like I said, Swiss bankers are rubbing their hands …
w.
further to the link about the Wind Farm in Ethiopia, given MSM reports gave the impression this one project would fulfill outstanding domestic energy demands and ennable Ethiopia to export to, as BBC put it, “neighbouring countries”:
28 Oct: IEEE Spectrum: Dave Levitan: Ethiopian Wind Farm Adds Five Percent of Country’s Total Electricity CapacityThose 120 MW actually represent about 5 percent of Ethiopia’s entire installed electricity generating capacity based on the Energy Information Administration’s latest data (and a more recent interview with the head of Ethiopia’s state-run utility).
Scaling up Africa’s energy supplies is considered an enormous priority for helping to draw many millions of people out of poverty, and doing so with renewable energy is a no-brainer…
Ethiopia alone has an estimated wind power potential of more than 1000 gigawatts (roughly the installed electricity capacity of the United States, from all energy sources). And while only a few projects are in the works in that country, an African Development Bank study from earlier this year reported that about 10.5 gigawatts of wind power currently in the pipeline across the continent…
The quick-hit potential of such massive electricity development is hard to resist in a continent where 500 million people lack access to power. But it is exciting as well that wind power projects like the one in Ethiopia are starting to take hold, along with the ever-present potential of Saharan solar power. And the money for these projects is starting to flow as well, highlighted by U.S. President Barack Obama’s announcement earlier this year of a US $7 billion grant for the Power Africa project; much of that cash will go toward renewable energy projects.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/green-tech/wind/ethiopian-wind-farm-adds-five-percent-of-countrys-total-electricity-capacity?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IeeeSpectrumEnergy+(IEEE+Spectrum%3A+Energy)
23 Oct: Reuters: UPDATE 2-Iberdrola warns on profit after regulatory hit
Regulatory changes wipe 1.01 billion euros from results.
Iberdrola SA warned on Wednesday that the costs of regulatory changes were hurting its earnings and straining its dividend payouts, making the Spanish utility the latest European energy firm to fall victim of tough market conditions.
Like other Spanish utilities such as Endesa, Iberdrola has been hit by government measures to solve a 26 billion euro ($35.8 billion) shortfall in Spain’s power system stemming from the difference between state-regulated costs and utilities’ revenues.
The company, a world leader in wind turbines, said cuts to renewables subsidies and a tax on generation in Spain, plus costs related to a regulator-mandated energy efficiency scheme in Britain and price cuts in Brazil had wiped 1.01 billion euros from its core profit in the first nine months of the year.
The impact of the regulatory changes could come as a shock as Iberdrola had moved away from the volatile business of power generation to seek lower but steady earnings abroad in regulated businesses like grids and wind power…
Some utilities have stopped investing in continental Europe and are seeking growth in emerging markets and more stable regulatory environments like the United States and Britain.
French peer GDF Suez has led the way in investing in power generation abroad, while Iberdrola has focused on foreign grids…
The group also faces regulatory hurdles in Brazil, where President Dilma Rousseff is looking to cut power rates again, a year after a forced tariff reduction…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/23/iberdrola-results-idUSL5N0ID12620131023
21 Oct: WindPowerMonthly: Iberdrola wins 61MW Kenyan contract
The Kinangop project, worth EUR 85 million to the Spanish utility company, will be located 40 kilometres from Nairobi and is being developed by Kenyan firm Aeolus.
Iberdrola will handle the engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning of the project.
Once constructed it will be owned by the African Infrastructure Investment Fund and the Norwegian investment fund for developing countries, Norfund.
As previously announced, the wind farm will be made up of 38 GE 1.6-82.5 turbines. It was originally initiated by EcoGen as a 30MW project in 2004, but was scaled up to 50MW in 2009, with a 60MW plan approved in May 2010.
Iberdrola, as part of a consortium with Gamesa, is also building the Ngong II wind farm, 30 kilometres from Nairobi…
While there are a number of wind farms in the pipeline in Kenya, including the 300MW Lake Turkana, the country still has only 5MW of installed capacity…
http://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1217133/iberdrola-wins-61mw-kenyan-contract
March 2012: Guardian: Clar Ni Chonghaile in Nairobi: Kenya to host sub-Saharan Africa’s largest windfarm
The Lake Turkana Wind Power project aims to provide reliable, low-cost wind power to the Kenya national grid, allowing the country to reduce its dependency on hydroelectric power
Kenya’s remote Turkana region was briefly a top Twitter trend on Monday after British firm Tullow Oil said it had struck oil in one of the east African country’s poorest areas. The news prompted a flurry of #TurkanaOil tweets with some predicting a windfall but many others wondering whether oil would be a blessing or a curse.
Somewhat ironically, as Kenya dreams of joining Africa’s oil giants, the arid region surrounding the jade waters of Lake Turkana is already poised to make a serious contribution to Kenya’s ever-growing energy needs with the construction of sub-Saharan Africa’s largest windfarm…
“The World Bank Group has been working with the Kenyan government and … Kenya Power on this since August last year. They are completing their internal approval processes including the due diligence on the project. They are well advanced and we hope they will have completed and reached their board approvals in the next two months,” Carlo Van Wageningen, head of LTWP, told the Guardian in an email response to questions.
The ambitious project, which is backed by the African Development Bank, marks the largest single private investment in Kenya’s history, and should allow the country to diversify from hydroelectric power, which provides around 60% of its electricity needs but is prone to drought and irregular rainfall, leading to blackouts and shortages that dampen economic growth.
Only about 18% of Kenyan households have access to power, according to the United Nations, and demand is increasing. Kenya’s peak electricity demand has risen to 1,200 megawatts, compared with 780MW in 2002, due to economic growth…
Nick Nuttall, spokesman for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said Kenya was among a group of developing countries where UNEP had mapped potentially windy sites and ones with good solar potential. He said LTWP had plans to expand the windfarm once the first phase is under way…
The windfarm will cover 40,000 acres in Loiyangalani district in north-eastern Kenya, stretching from 450m at the shore of Lake Turkana to 2,300m above sea level at the top of Mount Kulal…
A total of 365 wind turbines will be erected once 204km of roads have been built or improved to allow access for trucks, which will need to make around 12,000 trips to bring materials to the area…
He said it was too early to comment on what the consequences of the oil discovery in Turkana would be. “We hope and expect that the two investments can coexist without interfering with each other. We are also not sure yet on how near the discovery is to the LTWP site,” he said…
The LTWP consortium is made up of Dutch firm KP&P Africa B.V., Aldwych International, the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa (IDC), the Industrialisation Fund for Developing Countries (IFU), Wind Power A/S (Vestas) and the Norwegian Investment Fund for Developing Countries (Norfund).
LTWP says that the carbon credits the project creates should earn 26bn Kenyan shillings (euros 200m) over the life of the project, and this income will be shared with the government and invested in the surrounding community…
LTWP says the project will create 2,500 jobs during the 32-month construction period and 200 full-time jobs during its operations.
According to the Earth Policy Institute, wind energy developers installed a record 41,000MW of electricity-generating capacity last year, with more than 80 countries now harnessing the wind. In Africa, Ethiopia brought its first windfarm online last year, and both Nigeria and Mauritania have projects on the table. Until now, Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia have led the way, although South Africa is also believed to have substantial potential.
In Kenya, investment grew from virtually zero in 2009 to $1.3bn in 2010 across technologies such as wind, geothermal, small-scale hydro and biofuels.
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2012/mar/28/kenya-to-host-largest-windfarm-turkana
Pluted bloatocrats. Lol.
Good one Willis.
Reblogged this on Tallbloke's Talkshop and commented:
Willis on top form.
Looks like the sort of job where you need someone who is good at going for a long wait or a bubble for a spirit level (although I always thought they were goldfish farts trapped in those little tubes). Sounds like one of those jobs where it is more important to get the paperwork done than to actually do anything useful.
James Bull
A+, WIllis!
In agriculture, it’s a “win” if you can weaken the parasites that attack your crop by siccing another set of parasites on them. You don’t have to like the 2nd set of parasites, but you can certainly enjoy it when they’re sucking the life out of the 1st set of parasites!
“Financing adaptation”.
I think that means foreign taxpayers adapting to sending money to third world places where it will go to the existing power brokers to distribute among themselves, their friendly corporate citizens and the local indigents they now are willing to pay to serve them drinks and drive them around.
Talk, talk, talk. And then have a massage.
Oh, sorry. I tuned in Al Gore.
Classic Left-wing gravy train. The whole thing is a complete fraud to defraud taxpayers of the world to make these cushy “jobs” for themselves.I am sure that some community group seeking a couple of grand for a local project will be just thrilled to know they cannot have the money because their hard earned tax dollars went to yet another UN body with a catchy name that has been created to maintain the appearance of respectability.”Above all, appear respectable” is a motto of the Fabian Society, the instigators of the UN. It is also the tactic of habitual LIARS to keep up the trust in their con jobs.The entire UN itself is a massive con job built on a bed of lies to hide the true reason for their existence-to continue the work of Karl Marx, destroy traditional religion and replace it with a Gaian style “religion” that is eco-centric (Paganism) and destroy technology and society.