As the 21st Convention of Parties (COP21) climate talks are taking place in Paris right now, about 40,000 world leaders, diplomats, activists, policy experts, and journalists have been meeting to discuss the topic of climate change. Such a substantial gathering of individuals from around the globe requires an extensive budget to cover costs associated with housing, work areas, food, transportation, entertainment, and other costs. Considering the stated purpose of the summit, to stifle climate change, one may be surprised to learn that a substantial portion of the summit’s cost has been covered by private corporations. Among those corporations are businesses with direct ties to fossil fuel.
The fact that corporate sponsorship of any type or in any amount would be accepted is interesting in itself, considering the vilification of capitalism that the meetings are famous for. A fact even more staggering is the amount of the tab being picked up by private businesses, about 20 percent of an estimated $200 million budget. That’s a figure somewhere in the neighborhood of $40 million. While the companies involved would have the masses believe they are committed to “saving the world,” a question must be asked, “What does $40 million buy?” For the more than 50 corporate sponsors, the answer is probably influence, favors, and financial payback at the highest levels of world government. Corporatism, wherein companies essentially bribe politicians through donations in return for special treatment, is an everyday happening.
As President Obama, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and leaders from around the world preach the gospel of anthropogenic (man-made) global climate change, their actions outside of the conference illustrate their true hypocrisy. Earlier this summer a Shell Oil drilling rig left Seattle on its way to drill for oil in Alaskan waters. Not long after, in early September, president Obama was in the Alaskan Arctic preaching the gospel of global climate change on an episode of Running Wild With Bear Grylls. Considering that Shell was one of a handful of fossil fuel companies sponsoring last year’s conference, and considering that many people felt the president had options that could have blocked Shell from drilling in Alaska, a double standard is evident.
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In a recent report by Corporate Accountability International (CAI), a list of corporate sponsors at this year’s climate summit was detailed. The information released showed that several companies have direct ties to the fossil fuel industry. The CAI report made a point of highlighting three specific companies: EDF, a French electric company that utilizes multiple coal-fired power plants; Engie, a major European natural gas importer; and BNP Paribas, a multinational bank invested in coal mines and coal fired power plants to the tune of millions of dollars. Three large corporations each with a substantial “carbon footprint.” Apparently the important factor had nothing to do with the corporate carbon footprint left by any of the companies. What apparently mattered most was the size of the check issued by said companies.
Such donations would be akin to the Dallas Safari Club supporting the anti-hunting World Wildlife Fund. It’s not logical unless there are dealings under the table happening.
The corporate sponsorship at the COP21 climate summit should imply one fact in glaring fashion: Despite what Obama and other world leaders would have the people of the world believe, the summit is not really about climate change.
In fact, the main concern behind the climate-change movement and the COP21 summit in Paris is the spread of socialist UN agendas. The executive secretary of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, has made statements directly referencing this fact. Earlier this year at a news conference in Brussels, Figueres commented: “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.”
With that statement, UN “climate change boss” Figueres tied a direct link from climate change to the socialist movement since the model for the last 150 years has been capitalism.
In statements to Bloomberg News in January 2014, Figueres lauded China, claiming, “China is ‘doing it right, they actually want to breathe air they don’t have to look at.’” She claimed she was praising China for its commitment to clean air, but that makes no sense. China is a country with a capital city sporting air one actually can see. This week a “red alert” was issued in Beijing for polluted air; construction was halted and schools without high-quality air filtration systems were advised to close for the day. This is the country Figueres would have the world emulate, a country that builds a new coal-fired power plant every seven to 10 days.
Among the corporate sponsors, ties between climate change and the worldwide spread of socialism can be found as well. In the November 2015 issue of The Atlantic magazine, Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates decries capitalism, states “representative democracy is a problem,” and touts big government solutions as the only way to save mankind from the ills of climate change. Gates believes that by the year 2050 wealthy nations must be adding zero carbon to the skies. There certainly is a degree of irony in the statements of Gates, considering his fortune was built on the back of the free market system.
As the COP21 climate talks draw to a close at the end of this week, leaders from all corners of the free world will make promises to “save the world.” President Obama got his remarks in at the beginning of the conference, stating: “The growing threat of climate change could define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other. What should give us hope is that this is a turning point, that this is the moment we finally determined we would save our planet.” But they aren’t trying to save us from global warming.
They are trying to remake the world, with a global government able to dictate virtually any and all allowed behavior on the planet — for corporations and individuals alike. For the wealthy countries, this starts by redistributing wealth to other countries — with a bunch siphoned off in between by UN functionaries. President Obama will return and fight Congress to pass laws that will do nothing to help the environment and that will cost taxpayers untold amounts of money. All will be done in the name of saving the planet, and standing directly behind Obama, hands outstretched and waiting to be repaid, will be the list of corporate sponsors from the COP conference.
