Monday, November 8, 2010

Signposts: "Bank Tax, CO2 Auctions Recommended by Soros Panel to Help Climate Efforts"

The "Signposts" bit is a reference to Friedrich von Hayek.
I'm thinking of starting a series of "Signposts on the Road to Serfdom".

A look at the membership of the U.N.'s "High-Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing" discloses the three S's: Soros, Summers and Stern.

Sources of funds beyond the purview of the member states of the U.N. has been a long-sought dream of the self-appointed transnational elites, the tranzi's seem to be making a break for it here.
From Bloomberg:
At least $65 billion might be raised by taxing foreign-exchange transactions and auctioning pollution permits, a United Nations panel said today in a report recommending ways to finance aid for fighting global warming.
The panel, which includes billionaire investor George Soros and Larry Summers, director of President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council, said selling carbon-emissions permits would generate $38 billion and a financial transactions tax an additional $27 billion, according to the report released today.

The findings are intended to guide envoys at UN climate talks that start this month in Mexico as they seek ways to pay for $100 billion in climate aid that was pledged by 2020 to poor nations at last year’s summit in Copenhagen. The report found that the goal is “challenging but feasible” to achieve.

“Without agreement on finance, we will not be able to reach agreement on other issues for climate change,” Jens Stoltenberg, Norway’s prime minister and co-chairman of the advisory group, said at a press conference in New York. “Now we need the political will to take the decisions.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appointed the panel, called the High-Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing, in February. It’s led by Stoltenberg and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. The 21-member group also includes Soros, Summers and Deutsche Bank AG Vice Chairman Caio Koch- Weser.
The report didn’t specify what financial transactions would be covered by the tax beyond saying the focus would be on international currency sales.

‘Court Of Government’
“The ball is really now in the court of governments to move forward on generating these resources,” David Waskow, senior adviser on climate finance for the development charity Oxfam International, said in a telephone interview from Washington. “One can raise substantial public finance from public sources and do it in a way that’s not going to place additional pressure on national budgets and taxpayers.”...MORE
Here's the HLAGOCCF Final Report:

Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing
 1: Carbon Market Public Revenues
 2: International Transport
 3: Carbon-related Revenues
 4: Development Bank Instruments
 5: Financial Transaction Tax
 6: Direct Budget Contributions
 7: Private Finance
 8: Carbon Markets