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The Saker Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.
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Why the corporate capture of COP21 means we must Kick Big Polluters Out of climate policy international |
environment |
other press
 Thursday December 03, 2015 22:47 by 1 of Indymedia
 Corporate Europe Observatory has investigated the influence of corporate lobbying on EU climate policy and lift the lid on something the corporate media generally refuses to discuss in any real depth. Setting out their stall CEO's recent work exposing big business and dirty industry's lobbying and greenwashing at the EU and UNFCCC levels is part of the mounting evidence for why we must kick big polluters out of climate policy-making. Companies that profit from polluting and have a vested interest in the continued exploitation of fossil fuels have no place influencing talks designed to move us away from dirty energy. At the UN talks on tobacco control they kicked big tobacco out of public health policy-making at the international and national level. The same needs to happen for climate. Today, this is a call repeated by activists at COP21, and by hundreds of thousands of people around the world in a petition to kick #BigPollutersOut, being handed to UN climate chief Christiana Figueres. What Corporations are up to with the EU. EU policy-makers in bed with polluters: Corporate capture starts at home, with the privileged access and excessive industry influence over national governments and EU climate policy-making. The capture of the UN climate system, of COP21 and its predecessors, is a logical result of things going wrong at national and EU levels. In Brussels, CEO has shown time after time how the game is fixed – dirty energy and polluting industries are in bed with EU policy makers, but their cosy relationship is costing the earth. ...For every meeting the Commissioner for Climate, Miguel Arias Cañete, had with the renewable energy industry he had 22 with the fossil fuel industry... Another reason why the interests of those who are supposed to be representing the public interest (i.e. the regulators) and those who are profiting from polluting (i.e. the regulated) have become so blurred is the revolving door between big energy and the EU institutions. Staff taking their knowledge and contacts built up in the public sector to lobby on behalf of private commercial interests (and vice versa), as another recent CEO expose demonstrates. This all-too-cosy relationship is partly why the EU clings to its failed flagship climate policy, the Emission's Trading Scheme (ETS), a carbon market that has enriched polluters, failed to reduce domestic emissions and blocked more effective climate policies. It is clear that for ambitious and fair climate policies to come from the EU, policy-making must be safeguarded from the vested interests of polluters. What needs to be done. Kick the polluters out: In order to take action to avoid climate catastrophe in a fair and peaceful way, we must end the insidious influence of polluters. Short term profit-oriented corporations whose business models structurally require them to pollute, to burn fossil fuels, or to encourage endless growth and consumption regardless of the effects on people or planet, should not be setting the agenda. The mosquito doesn't get an invite to the anti-malaria conference, the arsonist isn't accepted into fire department, and the tobacco company is not welcome at public health meetings. In fact, tobacco companies are not – by law – allowed anywhere near public-health policy-making, because it is recognised that there is an irreconcilable conflict of interest between their goals: reducing use of, and harm from, tobacco vs selling more tobacco products. Full text at the link below |
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Jump To Comment: 1 2 3So big buisness are nodding their heads at one conference and shaking it at others, comment from Naomi Klein:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ0KUlRo3kQ
And Paul Watson's take:
Assessment of the COP 21 Fairy Tale
Here was what was not discussed at COP 21
The impact of industrial fishing on biodiversity depletion. Diminishment of 40% of the phytoplankton population in the sea has caused diminishment of oxygen and diminishment of zooplankton that sequesters auction. A solution would be to stop all government subsidies (around $76 billion Euros annually) that enables industrial fishing and the strip-mining of life in the sea. Nothing about the bleaching of the coral and the escalating diminishment of coral eco-systems. Nothing about acidification if seawater. Nothing about plastic pollution in the ocean.
In fact hardly anything about the Ocean was even discussed.
2. The impact of animal based agriculture on climate change, the fact that the annual slaughter of 65 billion animals a year (not counting fish) contributes more greenhouse gases each year than the entire transportation industry. (A vegan driving a Hummer would contribute less to greenhouse gas emissions than a meat-eater riding a bicycle. The only mention of the meat and fish industry were the hamburger and fish and chip stands at COP 21.
3. The ecocidal destruction of the Amazon rainforests and other rainforest eco-systems worldwide and the cultural genocide of indigenous people.
4. Nothing about escalating human populations contributing to increased levels of resource consumption.
5. No talk of giving nature a seat at the United Nations.
The reality is that the rich countries want to stay rich and the poor countries want to be rich.
And what really sucks is that there really is nothing binding about this agreement. Like all the "agreements" before the proof lies in the doing not the talking and the planet has a history of talking and not doing.
Of course the world leaders are patting themselves on the back and saying this is a milestone. Politicians always need to tell their people that they were not wasting their time and more importantly not wasting tax dollars.
And that is why my assessment in the French media is "Cet accord est juste un conte fees" or the "This accord is really just a fairy tale."
There are real solutions to climate change but the solutions are not the solutions people want to hear and although everyone wants to see change, very few people actually wish to change themselves.
And a wee video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzKK0TMTbIc
The COP21 meeting was all about how to get the private bankers even richer, like former neo nazi collaboarator ,a jew from hungary that murdered his OWN KIND,for a few sheckels,and convicted felon now billionaire George soros even richer than before.Climate change will only make certain people richer than ever before - taxing co2 does not get rid of it.
Lets remember George soros bankrupted the country of england it was called black wednesday,and thatcher did NOTHING about it because she was paid off,of couse this making many families homeless so he could make his first billion..
Getting back to my original point,taxing co2 and ch4 etc will not get rid of greenhouse gas emissions,the more pollution there is to tax the richer they will become,so they will fund BOTH sides of the climate change argument. It is in their interests to keep fossil fuels burning so they have more co2 to tax etc,so they will trade carbon credits on the stock market,its unethical,unscruplous and competley mad,we are trading in on the health of our planet to make a few private bankers even richer..Lets remember the koch brothers who heavily funded the climate change denial camp,who have interests in fossil fuel.And rupert murdoch who owns a new oil company known as ''genie'' who is currently on an expidition to syria to extract the last of the oil,these people engineeer wars,change our weather all to make a quick buck,its time we stood up to them and named and shamed them. We have politicians that are so easily bought off and wooed by these private bankers,we need to expect better..
While we are all squabbling with each other as to wheter climate change is real or not ,the water level is rising the ice caps are melting and the earth is heating up,all so some private bankers and some wall street shmuck city rats can get paper rich..
Someone has to tell them that all the paper in the world cannot save them from disaster,if the world flooded and all the crops were underwater ruined,and farm animals,then followed by harsh droughts,where no food would grow,or the bees died off due to the tempature rise - what would we have to eat? Even their luxuirious bunkers would not save them,eating tins of beans for a bunker for four years would not save them..They have to get real and see that money cannot protect you from everything..
Article from the COP 21 Paris Summit:
http://climateparis.org/