Friday, April 4, 2008

UN Can Regulate Emissions Trading Without Conflict of Interest

All together now: A Mandy Rice-Davies Moment!*
From Bloomberg:

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change can successfully fulfill its role as an emissions-trading regulator, while potential rival watchdogs have conflicts of interest, a UN official said.*

``It's very difficult to think of any organization that would not be in the conflict-of-interest position,'' Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the so-called UNFCCC, said today in an interview in Bangkok, where about 160 countries are meeting to discuss climate protection.

``If you want to put it with some institutions, say the World Bank, UN Development Programme, or the Global Environment Facility, they are involved in implementing projects and raising money,'' de Boer said.

The UNFCCC regulates projects in developing countries aimed at reducing the emission of greenhouse gases blamed for climate change. The UN credit-trading program is the world's second- biggest carbon market, after the EU system. A group of officials from the world's 13 biggest nations said in February that the UNFCCC's lawmaking and regulatory roles should be separated to introduce professional market governance.

The world should create an ``independent, regulatory body for the carbon market,'' according to draft recommendations from a committee of the Group of Eight Plus Five. The G8 comprises Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Russia, the U.K. and the U.S. The five developing countries are Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa....MORE

*Mandy was a whore with a minor role in the Profumo scandal of 1963.
Here's how Wikipedia tells the story:

...Rice-Davies came to London , where she met Christine Keeler and a well-connected osteopath Stephen Ward. As a result of her involvement in Ward's social set, she became intimate with many powerful people, including the then Viscount Astor. She never in fact met John Profumo, whose brief relationship with Keeler, with whom Rice-Davies shared a flat, was at the centre of the affair that caused him to resign from the government in June 1963. Rice-Davies had been one of the mistresses of notorious slum landlord Peter Rachman who had owned the flat she shared with Keeler.

"He would, wouldn't he?"

While giving evidence at the trial of Stephen Ward, Rice-Davies made the quip for which she is most remembered and which is frequently used by politicians in Britain[2]. When the prosecuting counsel pointed out that Lord Astor denied having an affair or having even met her, she replied, "Well, he would, wouldn't he?"....
  1. ^ This quote later became a common saying in British politics, often altered to "He would say that, wouldn't he?" Examples follow in these links: