UN rejects bid of US, others to give green funds ($100 bn a year) to companies, not nations

[No Elephants]

Rich countries' proposal to bypass governments on climate aid rejected

US-led group wanted to give $100bn a year directly to MNCs for projects to tackle climate change in developing countries

John Vidal +
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 3 July 2013 06.11 EDT


snip

The UN's fledgling Green Climate Fund (GCF) is designed to transfer money in the future from the developed to developing world, to tackle the impacts of climate change, such as floods and droughts.

Papers seen by the Guardian following a tense GCF board meeting in South Korea show that rich countries led by the US, Britain and Australia pushed for the World Bank-administered fund to be able to bypass the governments of poor countries by giving money intended to help them directly to rich countries' companies. Under this scenario, large contracts for climate change adaptation works in developing countries might have been awarded by the fund to international companies rather than to host governments.

They also lobbied hard for the fund to be able to act like an autonomous bank, taking risks, guaranteeing loans, having its own governing body and even being able to speculate with climate funds.

But the 24-strong board of the new fund voted down the proposal for the GCF to act like a bank and denied rich countries the independent governing structure for the private sector that they sought.

Instead, the board agreed to set up a powerful private sector advisory group and an investment committee. This suggests that rich countries will continue to try to control the funds.

The coffers of the GCF are still empty, but in scenes that mirrored the fraught on-going global climate talks, developing countries led by India tried to establish that the $100bn that has been pledged will be mainly channelled to them in the form of grants and not loans, and to the public rather than the private sector.

Civil society groups said they were shocked at the attempts by the private sector to hijack the money, which had been first pledged at the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009.

More at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jul/03/climate-aid-climate-change-fund


• This article was edited on 4 July 2013. The original said the Green Climate Fund was run by the World Bank. This has been corrected to reflect the bank's role as a trustee for the fund.


WOW!

Would this be the work of Samantha Power, the new US ambassador to the UN, who happens to be the wife of Cass Sunstein whom some think Obama may appoint to the SCOTUS, if there is another opening?

Or did Susan Rice set up this stuff before Obama considered for Secretary of State but made her National Security Advisor, once it became clear Republican Senators would not consent to her (Benghazi)?

[Enthusiast]

1. OMG!

Is there no depths to which these greedy fuckers will not sink? Seriously.

[No Elephants]

2. I guess not. This shocked even me.