Klimaatbeleid gaat over lijken

Ondanks verwoede pogingen daartoe, is nog nooit aangetoond dat de vermeende, door de mens veroorzaakte klimaatverandering doden heeft geëist. Bij het klimaatbeleid is dat echter wèl het geval. De verspilling van schaarse middelen voor een dergelijk beleid gaat natuurlijk ten koste van talloze andere mogelijke bestedingen, waarvan mensen direct kunnen profiteren. Als dat bijvoorbeeld gezondheidsuitgaven betreft, ligt het voor de hand dat daarbij doden vallen. Maar toegegeven, dat is moeilijk aan te tonen.

In recente incidenten die zich in Honduras en Uganda hebben voorgedaan, was de causale samenhang echter wèl evident. Deze vormen een direct uitvloeisel van de CO2-emissiehandel, die noch tot een vermindering van de CO2-uitstoot heeft geleid, noch ook tot enig aantoonbaar effect op het klimaat. Maar deze leidt wèl tot gewelddadigheden met dodelijke slachtoffers. Het klimaatbeleid gaat dus over lijken.

De reactie daarop van de voorstanders van dat soort wanbeleid was natuurlijk: ´Wir haben es nicht gewusst. Wir haben es nicht gewollt.´

EurActiv rapporteerde daarover:

The reported killing of 23 Honduran farmers in a dispute with the owners of UN-accredited palm oil plantations in Honduras is forcing the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) executive board to reconsider its stakeholder consultation processes. [Een voorbeeldige bureaucratische reactie, maar nu niet bepaald iets waarop de slachtoffers zitten te wachten!]

In Brussels, the Green MEP Bas Eickhout called the alleged human rights abuses "a disgrace", and told EurActiv he would be pushing the European Commission to bar carbon credits from the plantations from being traded under the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

Several members of the CDM board have been "personally distressed" by the events in Bajo Aguán, northern Honduras, according to the board's chairman, Martin Hession, who said they had "caused us great difficulties." "Plainly, the events that have been described are deplorable," he told EurActiv. "There is no excuse for them." But because they took place after the CDM's stakeholder consultations had been held, and fell outside the board's primary remit to investigate emissions reductions and environmental impacts, it had been powerless to block project registrations. [Ach ja ...]

Another board member told EurActiv that Aguán was a "hot potato," which struck at the heart of the emissions trading scheme's integrity. "We all regret the situation extremely," he said.

Lees verder hier.

Maar ook een paar duizend kilometer verderop, in Uganda, ging het goed fout. Onder de titel, ´In Scramble for Land, Group Says, Company Pushed Ugandans Out´, rapporteert Josh Kron in ´The New York Times´:

KICUCULA, Uganda — According to the company’s proposal to join a United Nations clean-air program, the settlers living in this area left in a “peaceful” and “voluntary” manner. “I heard people being beaten, so I ran outside,” said Emmanuel Cyicyima, 33. “The houses were being burnt down.” Other villagers described gun-toting soldiers and an 8-year-old child burning to death when his home was set ablaze by security officers. “They said if we hesitated they would shoot us,” said William Bakeshisha, adding that he hid in his coffee plantation, watching his house burn down. “Smoke and fire.”

According to a report released by the aid group Oxfam on Wednesday, more than 20,000 people say they were evicted from their homes here in recent years to make way for a tree plantation run by a British forestry company, emblematic of a global scramble for arable land.

“Too many investments have resulted in dispossession, deception, violation of human rights and destruction of livelihoods,” Oxfam said in the report. “This interest in land is not something that will pass.” As population and urbanization soar, it added, “whatever land there is will surely be prized.” Across Africa, some of the world’s poorest people have been thrown off land to make way for foreign investors, often uprooting local farmers so that food can be grown on a commercial scale and shipped to richer countries overseas. But in this case, the government and the company said the settlers were illegal and evicted for a good cause: to protect the environment and help fight global warming.

The case twists around an emerging multibillion-dollar market trading carbon-credits under the Kyoto Protocol, which contains mechanisms for outsourcing environmental protection to developing nations. The company involved, New Forests Company, grows forests in African countries with the purpose of selling credits from the carbon-dioxide its trees soak up to polluters abroad. Its investors include the World Bank, through its private investment arm, and the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, HSBC.

In 2005, the Ugandan government granted New Forests a 50-year license to grow pine and eucalyptus forests in three districts, and the company has applied to the United Nations to trade under the mechanism. The company expects that it could earn up to $1.8 million a year.

Lees verder hier.

Het lijkt wel het ´butterfly effect´, waarbij betrekkelijk onopgemerkte en ongetwijfeld goed-bedoelde (doch nutteloze en onzinnige) beslissingen in Europa levens van mensen elders in de wereld kunnen verwoesten. Het toont maar weer eens aan dat de weg naar de hel is geplaveid met goede bedoelingen.

Klimaat maakt meer kapot dan je lief is.