Essay by Eric Worrall
According to The Guardian, poor countries will demand a global carbon tax this week on airline travel, shipping fuel and fossil fuel extraction.
Vulnerable countries demand global tax to pay for climate-led loss and damage
Poor nations exhort UN to consider ‘climate-related and justice-based’ tax on big fossil fuel users and air travel
Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent
Mon 19 Sep 2022 15.00 AEST…
Some of the world’s most vulnerable countries have prepared a paper, seen by the Guardian, for discussion this week at the UN general assembly. It shows that poor countries are preparing to ask for a “climate-related and justice-based” global tax, as a way of funding payments for loss and damage suffered by the developing world.
The funds could be raised by a global carbon tax, a tax on airline travel, a levy on the heavily polluting and carbon-intensive bunker fuels used by ships, adding taxes to fossil fuel extraction, or a tax on financial transactions.
…
All options for funding loss and damage are likely to be difficult for rich nations to agree to at a time of soaring fossil fuel costs, rising food prices and a cost of living crisis around the world. Although rich countries agreed at the Cop26 UN climate summit in Glasgow last year that there should be a framework for loss and damage, there is no agreement on how it could be funded or who should contribute.
…
Walton Webson, Antigua and Barbuda’s ambassador to the UN and chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, said: “[We] deserve to live without the looming fear of debt and destruction. Our islands are bearing the heaviest burden of a crisis we did not cause, and the urgent establishment of a dedicated loss and damage response fund is key to sustainable recovery. We are experiencing climate impacts that become more and more extreme with each passing year.”
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/19/vulnerable-countries-demand-global-tax-to-pay-for-climate-led-loss-and-damage
The new UN Climate Chief, Caribbean politician Simon Stiell, may have have his fingers in this pie, though as far as I know he hasn’t come out and openly declared any involvement.
Any tax like this would obviously be devastating for global shipping, food and fuel prices, as even The Guardian admits.
CAGW = Wealth Redistribution.
Yup. I don’t have any money, therefore I demand that someone who has money gives me some of theirs.
Wealth redistribution has been going on for decades. I blame communism.
You need to understand the difference between “wealth redistribution” and “ending poverty”, I blame the poor state of education.
~Benjamin Franklin
pity society then takes more from the poor battlers who tried hard and died early than the mighta worked for a while rich who then keep profiting
ie work hard fix your house and cop extra rates and penalties for doing so
I was born in poverty the youngest of a large family, brought up by siblings, went to a dreadful school and left at 15
I worked hard and did ok
Many of my contemporaries chose to bemoan their situation
I have no complaints except the moaners who think life should be served up on a golden platter
And now you are going to be taxed to help support those who didn’t work as hard as you did.
Another socialists who defines not giving away as much free stuff, as “taking away”.
The vast, vast, majority of people who are poor, are poor because of choices that they have made during their lives. This habit of making poor choices does not go away just because government decides to subsidize those poor choices.
On the topic of poor and choices:
Many years ago I hit a very rough time while trying to support my family. I applied for some “temporary” government assistance. In order to get any help, I was REQUIRED to attend classes to teach me how to apply for a job (I had been working for several years), how to interview, etc.
The problem was that those classes were scheduled for exactly the same time as the ONE source of income I did have. Part time so it wasn’t supporting me, but they INSISTED that I give up my $20/hour part time job so that I could take classes helping me to get a $5/hour full time job. There was no alternative.
I passed and pulled myself up without their help.
The system isn’t designed to help, it’s designed to trap.
It is designed to create jobs for liberals.
Lawyer upon layer of government and government funded NGOs full of liberals.
CRT = liberal jobs
Reduce class sizes and keep disruptive “students” in the classroom = more liberals employed.
Government required “diversity” retraining = liberals employed.\
And in “higher” education, all the above, and many more government enforced policies = more liberals teaching useless liberal courses of “study”
And now, for those who got US student loans, 10 to 20 thousand dollars free! Paid for by ditch diggers, McDonalds employees and convenience store clerks.
The US must eliminate 50% of the government, through elimination of the IRS (Fair Tax) and the elimination of EVERY Entitlement at the national level, returned to the states with NO federal role. 5 years starting at 80% block grant to the states, then 60% etc.
Then the US will return to a Republican form of government where people can truly vote with their feet by moving to states where government decides how much they want to fund freeloaders, in accordance with the views of the VOTERS.
Texas, Florida, Arizona, Nevada. Utah, Montana. S Dakota, etc. have lots of room for more hard working and freedom loving American people and businesses.
All “entitlements” are, by their very nature, unconstitutional. The purpose was to remove the differences between the states, so one could not escape the leftist rot.
G’Day Drake,
“… through elimination of the IRS (Fair Tax) …”
Some folk might not be familiar with that concept.
https://fairtax.org/about/how-fairtax-works
(An ‘aside’. I put in eleven seasons with H&R Block, 1984 to ’94. Keeping up with federal and state [CA] tax law changes is a right royal pain in the butt.)
Another comment on poor and choices:
If you were to take all the wealth (let’s just say US for now) and distribute absolutely evenly, almost everyone would be exactly where they are today within about 5 years, because poor people usually remain poor due to bad choices.
I won’t even get into all the people I’ve personally met who I’ve watched continue to make bad choices and continue to stay poor, other than to mention that I’ve witnessed it A LOT. Rather, I submit the very strong tendency of lottery winners suddenly becoming wealthy and being just as broke, or even worse, within only a few years.
Its government that’s doing the taking, not society.
The question is: did the people who push all these policies to “help the poor” not read that, or did they read it and decided to push the policies to actually keep the poor down?
My gut tells me it’s the latter.
So do the results.
It would be more efficient if all the money were sent to a Swiss bank and raffle among corruption government officials be held and the money assigned to the proper accounts.
No mention of wealth creation, putting knowledge, information and resources together in new ways that are better than the old way of doing things. In a free system economics does not have to be a zero sum game. But too many are wedded to the politics of scarcity.
Strange how people only look at one end of the Laffer Curve.
The decline in GDP since Thatcherism/Reaganomics was introduced in the 1980s shows that we are at the right-hand side.
Redistribution raises almost all boats from here.
If the floating all boats cliche was valid then the first boats to rise would be the lowest. Do you think that is what the graph shows? The poor are watching the rich accellerate away from them. There is only one way that ends.
I’m guessing that you have never been near large bodies of water.
All boats are at the same level. Sea level.
Decline in GDP since the 1980s?
What planet do you live on?
You don’t make poor people rich by making rich people poor.
But you do make socialists happy.
I don’t think anything makes socialists happy…
thing is?
theres stuff all difference between capitalism at its best(worst) ie ussa and the old full on communist places like ussr and china or NK.
scumbags like the bankster families zuckie gates bezos are as bad as any red dictator, for their workers and economy
Globalism has done more, and faster, to widen the poverty gap than anything else in history.
The bigger government gets, the wider the income gap gets.
Globalism has nothing to do with it.
Even if true, so what?
Why is it that socialists get their panties in such a wad whenever they find out that there is someone with more stuff than they have?
PS: It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest to find out that many of the people doing best right now, are getting rich off of government programs that socialists have been pushing.
Like Musk and Tesla!
CAGW = Marxist-Socialism. As Tom Nelson says on his Twitter account, ‘this isn’t about the climate, is it.
Once again, socialism will end up benefiting those who are already rich the most.
The vast majority of the money will wind up in the hands of people who are already rich.
And the UN kleptocrake intermediaries.
Wealth distribution on steroids .
Making the rich poorer does not make the poor richer .
It’s the 2nd law of economics:
Each transaction produces parasitic losses know as taxes.
So the science is settled.
The only way to “fix” the climate is for Western countries’ taxpayers to shower shithole regimes with $$$$s.
(transacted through the UN of course. 10% for the Big Guy?)
It may be a little bit off topic, but I wondered why the community, or this site respectively, fails to see the relevance of contrails. So I used the search function and found a couple of very disappointing articles. And a little gem.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12/16/agu15-accidental-geoengineering-airline-traffic-may-help-create-an-icy-haze-thats-brightening-u-s-skies/
Charles Long, Senior Research Scientist, NOAA (from 11:30 on)
Regrettably no one seemed to understand what this man was actually saying. While asserting he should probably not talk about it, he points out contrails and their diffuse remainders are a far stronger forcings than CO2!!!!
I perfectly understand why he thinks so and I can only confirm it. Anyway, there is a NOAA scientist straight forward debunking the CO2 warming theory. And for all the right reasons so.
Watch specifically the 00:35:00 part..
Leaked as in before the midterm elections in the U.S.
I’m starting to tend to the theory they are too lazy for such strategic thinking, I suspect they present a continuous barrage of random demands for money, and occasionally one sticks.
I think it is a bit more complicated than that. The poor country has to negotiate backroom payoffs to the “right” people like the Big Guy.
If the poor country has any resources, then those will be signed over to the donor state. I’m sure there is a large framework that has to be filled out before the donor state transfers any monies that are taken from someone else (taxpayers) and can be allocated to the designated officials to be meted out to the proper functionaries so that a few poor people can eat for the day or long enough for media exposure to show how magnanamous the donor state is.
But this leak works against the Democrats, as its a hammer for the GOP to beat them with, endless taxation if you follow the Biden green insanity path.
No, its all about the UN schedule, fall is when they get together to outline the next year’s scams.
A movement by the Wabenzi.
An International Carbon Tax to Combat Global Warming by Bernard P. Herbert and Jose T. Raga July, 1995:
“An international carbon tax has been the subject of considerable recent discussion as an economic incentive instrument to combat the perceived threat of global warming …”
My guess is that they will still be discussing it in another 27 years in 2050, if the world hasn’t been destroyed by
global warmingclimate change by then.It was always going to come to this. It was never about the science. The Green Agenda is simply a justification for infinite government.
Doesn’t seem like government to me. Seems like anarchy.
Or kleptocracy.
The bigger government gets, the more chaotic everything else gets.
Big government means rules get more and more arbitrary.
Which in turn means attempting to actually make plans for your life, your business, whatever, is just a fools errand. Since a simple rule change can completely gut your plans.
As government gets bigger, the only rational choice is to just live life for the moment.
“Poor nations exhort UN to consider ‘climate-related and justice-based’
tax on big fossil fuel users and air travel”
By next year, how many of those on the “poor nations list” will have
once been on the “big fossil fuel users & air travel” list?
My wife and I spent an enjoyable holiday on Antigua. One thing we learned while their is that Antigua has no sources of energy – fuel oil, gasoline and diesel are brought in by barge. What happens when the refineries are all shut, and there are no fossil fuels to be had? The island is probably not big enough to support the wind and solar farms, plus the storsage, to keep the place going. And offshore wind would do wonders for the tourist trade.
It’ll revert to its original state of marginally inhabited desert isle as will most of the Caribbean.
Rockerscientist
“It’ll revert to its original state of marginally inhabited desert isle as will most of the Caribbean.”
So.
Another win for the people-haters; either depopulation or Climate Policy Refugees, probably bussed to Martha’s Vineyard. . . .
Auto
I wouldn’t even consider their request. How long have the developing nations been developing? For as long as I can remember and that is a long time. It is past time for them to become developed, they have pissed our help and money away long enough.
The continuous transfer of money is probably the reason they haven’t developed. Subsidies almost always prop up economic failure, at the expense of real development.
“For God’s Sake, Please Stop the Aid!” – Kenyan Economics Expert James Shikwati
Of course this subsidy / failure rule also applies to renewable energy. The funniest part of the current net zero push, if the government stopped handing out subsidies, smart people might focus on solving renewable energy technology problems, instead of focusing their efforts on mining subsidies.
I’ll repeat the quote from Benjamin Franklin:
When you subsidize something, you get more of it.
When you tax something, you get less of it
So we tax wealth creation and subsidize poverty.
And socialists are surprised when there is less wealth and more poverty.
The biggest and most effective source of aid for developing countries, is for the developed countries to buy the stuff they produce.
And to achieve that, the West should be investing aid in improving the infrastructure – as opposed to telling them they can’t have 24/7 electricity. Roads, rail, dock facilities, storage, etc. to help get their goods to market. They should be a source of cheap labour for manufacture but without the infrastructure, and a curb on despotic leaders, it won’t happen.
It’s always about extortion, isn’t it?
Although global shipping used a very polluting fuel, it does so very efficiently, so much so that it is by far and away the most efficient form of transport.
“it is by far and away the most efficient form of transport”
Hence the tax is needed.. Can’t have things that are efficient and work well !
In Tacoma they built a large LNG tank to replace the bunker fuel for bulk transport ships & the Greens went nuts. Clearly this is about stopping human progress & not about “saving the planet”
I vote that we sign Figerous (sp) & Oliver Schwab (Klaus JR) as collections agents and send them to Russia, North Korea, and Belarus as a start.
I would move North Korea up to spot #1. That would be great fun to watch.
And no fossil fuel use to get there.
Fossil fule tax: why do you leave China out of your list?
those were just for the start.
China, Somalia (by boat), Afghanistan (via Syria & Yemen), back to Congo.
All visits inclusive of a PR campaign to the rural areas explaining that, although the taxes they collect will increase fuel costs, it allow for appropriate administrative oversight of the funds that are collected.
Great! Then they can spend that money paying cargo carriers and airlines bribes to deliver supplies and tourists to their remote locations. Bravo, morons, bravo!
Seems like a surefire way to prevent their development. Places like Antigua depend on long haul and cruise tourism. That Barbuda was devastated to the point of being totally evacuated following Hurricane Irma does rather colour their views.
When and by whom was the UN granted global taxing authority?
It granted the power to itself.
Fortunately the UN does not have a mechanism for this, so, the Alliance of Small Island States can go out on their beaches and pound sand.
The UN doesn’t work like that, it has an highly efficient propaganda organisation which appears to control politicians and heads of State. It’s tentacles reach deep into many areas of society with its agenda to undermine the workings of the capitalist system. It doesn’t need any remit or mechanism.
This smells very much like the Madives Islands’ scam back in the 80s.
On September 26, 1988, experts predicted the 1,196 islands of the Maldives would drown in the next thirty years. That date has passed, and they only missed by 1,196 islands.
https://bit.ly/3wpW54f
10/2/18
IN 1988, environmental ‘authorities’ and the United Nations predicted that the Maldives’ 1,196 islands would be underwater by 2018.
‘Sea level is threatening to completely cover’ Maldives’ 1,196 islands within 30 years…
That date has passed, and they only missed by 1,196 islands.
TWO years on from the drowning of the Maldives, the situation is dire…
Maldives to open four new airports in 2020 – Maldives Insider
It’s not just the Maldives they were wrong about, either.
WHAT THE ‘SCIENCE’ SAYS
UNFORTUNATELY for cash-strapped island nation governments and ClimateChange™️ catastrophists, Mother Nature is aware that the seas have been steadily rising for the past 15,000 years, and she knows precisely how to compensate for that incremental rise.
“SHAPE-SHIFTING” Islands
NZ peer-reviewed research proves that coral island atolls are growing or “shape-shifting”, not shrinking or “sinking” as weaponised by climate alarmists.

Dynamic atolls give hope that Pacific Islands can defy sea rise | The Conversation
This finding is consistent with our case studies in the Great Barrier Reef and the Maldives, which show that islands can form under a range of sea-level conditions including rising, falling, and stable.
Together, these studies show that sea level alone is not the main factor that controls the formation and subsequent change of reef islands. These processes also depend on the surrounding coral reef generating sufficient sand and shingle to build islands…
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921818110001013
Haven’t many of the islands in the Maldives actually gotten bigger over those years?
Yep, coral reefs don’t sink and, unless you do something really stupid like dynamiting the reef structure (search blast fishing), it continues to grow.
For some reason they forget to mention there earth is in a small cooling period … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvcoX2N2g1E
Climate alarmists also like to conventionally omit the fact that historically CO2 levels FOLLOW warming periods instead of proceeding them like they want everyone to believe.
Are these poor countries determined to make themselves poorer? Never mind dragging the rest of us down as well.
Mind you it is just the sort of thing the UN loves in its chase to destroy capitalism
What does the UN do when they run out of other people’s money, should any of their harebrained schemes succeed? It is capitalism which has enriched the world and lifted many boats out of the quagmire of poverty. Trying to stifle capitalism is self-defeating for the morons at the UN, and the socialists who push the “justice” narrative.
True beliefs do not depend on success
https://www.inverse.com/culture/cult-survival-tactic
As long as they have sufficient power to take what they want, they don’t care how poor you get.
So what would the undeveloped countries be without the developed countries. Undeveloped without the trade to developed countries and cell phones.
Eric,
The Australian Climate Minister is off to Cairo for COP27 in November.
As one of the 28 Annex1 nations signed up to the Paris Accord, Australia is obligated to contribute to the Green Fund which has received a promised $100 billion a year going forward, before we get to Loss and Damage discussed here.
Let’s do the Mathematics.
President Biden committed US$ 15 billion annually at Glasgow.
Reportedly the 27 EU countries are to contribute 23 billion Euros annually.
Turkey wants out of Annex1 and wants to be categorised as a developing nation.
The balance of the $100 billion will have to come from Canada,Australia and New Zealand and possibly a few other small players.
Hmm. Those countries seem to be in the gun for a large hunk of dough!
So let’s pick a figure for Australia’s contribution.
US $3billion a year indefinitely.
So if we are also obligated to say 3% of Loss and Damage going forward, let’s add 3% of $400 billion annually ( Pakistan’s former President Imran Khan, later increased to $1 trillion annually by China and others).
Then there is the Climate Reparations for the “ historical injustice” of the Industrial Revolution.
Are we far enough down the Rabbit Hole with Alice here?
The Aussie government recently refused to extend the fuel tax holiday, because they need the cash. Any UN handout extravagances will come back to haunt them.
BUT, what do they need it for?
The Wabenzi, as discussed earlier, of course.
Auto
Credit the leaders of poor countries with astonishing chutzpah. They keep their citizens poor with their kleptocratic, kakistocratic governance then beg the UN for more money to steal to continue their reign of impoverishment. They know how stupid the bleeding-heart, virtue-signaling ruling class of western countries is.
Since china is the biggest emitter they will have to pay the most.
Seems fair to me.
HA!!!
This is somewhat off-topic, but another climate kids’ lawsuit bites the dust…
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/kids-climate-change-lawsuit-tossed-by-virginia-judge-2022-09-19/
I’m so disappointed…….NOT.
Walton Webson, Antigua and Barbuda’s ambassador to the UN and chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, said: “[We] deserve to live without the looming fear of debt and destruction.
Hear, hear! So do I. End the public funding of the CAGW fear franchise today!
Simple solution. Nothing in to those countries using this scheme. Let their politicians deal with the chaos sure to follow. In most poor and underdeveloped countries its the politicians who have kept the citizens from enriching themselves.
If I am forced to pay such a tax – which is likely to be ripped off by many of the developing world’s own corrupt leaders – which is frequently a factor for the poorer countries, then I will immediately stop my donations. They are certainly larger that a tax like this which will also impact on prices for the very people it is supposed to help. Given that the democracies are also likely the only ones who will pay – and many “democratic: leaders seem to be busy destroying their own countries economies at the moment, there may not be anyone left to pay.
The odds of them getting the Developed World to get their citizens to agree to any sort of taxes whose revenues would be sent offshore are about as good as Canada’s reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2030. Citizens in general are thoroughly fed up with yet another tax, particularly when they hear of foreign aid money being regularly squandered or misappropriated. What happened to most of the $19 billion raised for Haiti after the 2010 earthquake? The real irony of such a proposal is that while these poor countries denounce the carbon emissions that are supposedly causing the “climate crisis”, they depend mainly on coal, oil and natural gas for their energy generation.
The UN will love this. They have been angling for a steady income stream separated from elected governments for decades.
The ignominy of UN officials having to beg climate denier Trump for funds. How is it possible that the great and dutiful doing all their good for the world are held to account by a scoundrel. They need their own source of funds. The idea of taxing the global population for the carbon they consume is brilliant. A tiny administrative tax of maybe 1% would ensure the UN can continue to do its great and noble work.
That ‘tiny admin tax’, unhappily, due to supply constraints, WuFlu, the need to attract sufficient talented (rapacious) staff, etc., will tend to grow inexorably.
Odd that!
Auto
Antigua and Barbuda want a “global carbon tax”? There current electricity is fossil fueled. They wish to tax their own electricity?
Is China still considered a poor, developing nation???
Yes, China has been poor and developing for 6000 years. Plus, it’s the only one with a space program and nuclear weapons.
What about India and Pakistan?
Parts of China are very rich. Other parts remain very poor.
Funny thing is, I thought that couldn’t happen under communism/socialism.
The cesspool of corruption that is the UN needs funding of its extravagant spending to come from somewhere.
This would only lead to further constrictions of FF production and result in increased energy costs, which would hurt poor countries even more.
The UN has been looking for a way to institute taxes on the various sovereign states.
Governments always seek ways to grow. It’s what they do.
Ah yes, the eternal mantra of the developing world ‘gimme money”.
“We DEMAND a global carbon tax!!!”
“No.”
The UN promotes and feeds the development of politicians, countries, peoples,… with beggar mentality.
time between “conspiracy theory” and fact keeps dropping
Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,
An opinion piece published by the World Economic Forum lauds how “billions” of people complied with “restrictions” imposed as a result of lockdown, suggesting they would do the same under the guise of reducing carbon emissions.
—————————–
Id bet this move via grunion, has full WEF backing if not creation behind it too
although I do remember saying that the poor would start demanding compensation for perceived damages some years ago
after all, a handy cashcow like this presents is hard to pass up on, took longer than I though though for majority to start up
We are the carbon they want to reduce.
The UN needs another fund? Nobody paid into the last fund.
If the Guardian admits it will be devastating for global energy prices, that is a certain indication they will champion its introduction. As the Guardian is the print version of the BBC we should not be at all surprised to hear how ‘equitable’ this carbon tax is and to hear how ‘beneficial’ it will be in redressing the imaginary Climate Change impact of poorly managed and poorly administered nations across the globe.
“Antigua and Barbuda’s ambassador to the UN and chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, said: “[We] deserve to live without the looming fear of debt and destruction.”
Selected groups should pay even though there is no damage, just fear caused by the climate catastrophe claims of the climate industrial complex and allied interests (one-world government, par ex)?
Quit the fear mongering. Climate has changed through history and through geologic time. Humans and animals have adapted especially after they understand that floodplains flood, coastal storm surges happen, droughts occur, rain falls, freshwater resources may be limited, forests burn, sea levels have been higher and lower and have been steadily rising for ages …
That’s right tax the one thing that this planet must have in order to have plant life. Things are not bad for the current levels. Crop yields are high.
Well, this certainly explains the reemergence of the grifters with the Clinton Global Initiative.
They’ll really be in deep yogurt if this would actually happen, then fuel prices go thru the roof even more. Then they won’t be able to function at all for lack of ability to buy the fuel they need. Lotsa luck putting up windmills and solar arrays on small islands.
The UN has no authority to levy taxes, in fact, the UN has no authority at all. Best advice, tell’em to FOFF.
Seen on a bus stop bench in LA in the 70’s:
“Get the US out of the UN, and the UN out of the US.”
What do they think poor countries will do with that money? reduce their emissions? On the contrary. For poor people, energy is still high cost. They will use that money to subsidize their fuel and gas so that people can burn more of it. No net gain on any of their supposed climate war.
Give me a shout when China signs up to this….