EU countries used €600 million climate loophole worth extra “114 million cars”

Taxing a basic molecule of life on Earth was never going to be easy.

Leaked paper exposes EU abuse of climate loophole

EXCLUSIVE/ European Union countries exploited loopholes in United Nations forestry rules to pocket carbon credits worth €600 million and the equivalent of global-warming emissions from 114 million cars.

That’s slightly more cars than exist in Germany, France and Italy combined.

You will not believe, governments overstated their logging targets then claimed credits for the forests they didn’t cut down, and the EU paid them for it.

Just saving the world, one lie at a time.

The document said that leaving the loophole open risked 133 million tonnes of unearned carbon credits falling into governments hands.

133 million tonnes is worth €665 million at today’s carbon price and is equivalent to 127 million cars on the road.

It’s a market based on intentions instead of a product. What could possibly go wrong?

9.4 out of 10 based on 78 ratings

68 comments to EU countries used €600 million climate loophole worth extra “114 million cars”

  • #
    Bite Back

    If the temptation of carbon credits had never been there in the first place then no one could cheat on the system in the second place.

    One good lie deserves another as if two lies strung together make the truth — carbon is an evil problem so let’s solve it with essentially a tax on producing carbon dioxide and call it a commodity that has value and can be traded. The one leads to the other like night follows day.

    BB

    240

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Yep! It is like saying that the Government is prepared to stop domestic violence by paying non-offenders.

      Of course this payment from the Government will be treated as income, and therefore taxable, so the recipient’s tax liabilities would go up, perhaps pushing the taxpayer into the next highest tax bracket.

      As a result, some people could find that paying the extra tax, and accounting for each incidence of violence, and every incidence of non-violent behaviour, to be a very humiliating and frustrating process; perhaps even to the point where domestic violence actually occurs?

      The bureaucratic mind is a wondrous thing.

      240

    • #

      As I’ve asked before, name one Green scheme that has worked.

      211

      • #
        Lionell Griffith

        What works depends upon one’s purpose. Simply look at what they repeatedly achieve, and you will have found their purpose. It apparently works quite well for them. Otherwise they would not persist in their efforts to achieve it. Clearly, they are indifferent to the fact that it doesn’t work so well for us. Which, I suggest, is a major portion of their purpose.

        120

        • #

          Up to a point I guess that’s true, but look at the effects of bird chomping windfarms, as just one example: http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/new/us-windfarms-kill-10-20-times-more-than-previously-thought.html, http://www.audubon.org/news/will-wind-turbines-ever-be-safe-birds. But hey, it’s the virtue signalling that matters, not the intended effects.

          90

          • #
            Lionell Griffith

            There are always unintended consequences of such things. If consequences are serious enough, they are called collateral damage.

            The real purpose of the wind farms is to destroy the possibility of industrial quantities of inexpensive and reliable electrical energy. Which, in turn, will result in the dismantling of technological civilization. Once that is completed, the few humans surviving the event will wish they hadn’t.

            70

            • #

              It’s off topic I know, but Lionel nails it where he says this: (my bolding here)

              The real purpose of the wind farms is to destroy the possibility of industrial quantities of inexpensive and reliable electrical energy.

              Why is there a crying need for coal fired power?

              Take yesterday as a prime example.

              Challicum Hills Wind Plant is one of the oldest large scale wind plants in Australia, and it was constructed in 2003. When Challicum Hills was brand spanking new, Hazelwood was already 40 years old.

              Yesterday Challicum Hills wind plant generated 168MWH of electrical power.

              Hazelwood is now 53 years old, and delivered that same amount of power generated by Challicum Hills in …..

              7 Minutes and 20 Seconds …..

              What do you do when you have days like this, and this isn’t just an isolated occasion, as it happens often.

              The average age of those 43 wind plants across Australia, with their 2400 turbines on poles and a Nameplate of 3900MW is around six and a half years.

              Yesterday, every one of those wind farms generated the same amount of power delivered by Hazelwood in seven and a half hours.

              True, there will be days when wind has a high power generation, but there are days when it is low, and periods of time during an individual day when it is very low. It’s random. At 11.30PM last night, not long after Earth Hour finished, EVERY wind plant in Australia was only generating a total of 150MW, less power than ONE of Hazelwood’s eight units at the same time.

              Bird killing, noise, health problems, loss of the view, all of those things are important, but far and away the most important thing is that they fail to deliver reliable, constant, and inexpensive electricity, which is the sole province (here in Oz anyway) of coal fired power.

              Just what do you do when you have days like yesterday, and at times like 11.30PM last night?

              Tony.

              140

              • #
                peter

                Tony,
                Do you have any comment on the claim that Hazelwood couldn’t possibly be kept running because it would cost 100s of $millions for maintenance and safety updates? Sounds like people looking for reasons not to keep it running but is it true?

                30

            • #
              aussiepete

              Agree Lionell when you say,
              The real purpose of the wind farms is to destroy the possibility of industrial quantities of inexpensive and reliable electrical energy“.
              This surely is why emissions reduction targets morphed into renewable energy targets when we weren,t looking.

              60

            • #

              I fully understand that the intent of the Greens is to destroy western civilisation. Unfortunately, there are far too many ignorant supporters that, for some reason, don’t realise this; they truly believe all of these schemes are to save the world that they know, not to destroy it.

              80

              • #
                Lionell Griffith

                I suggest that you are much too generous with far too many of the green blob. Way down deep where, it really counts, they resent the responsibility that being human places upon them: being rational and self responsible. As a consequence, they hate the products of the human mind and want to destroy the good BECAUSE it is GOOD.

                Again, look at the consequences of the policies they advocate and implement. If they really didn’t want those consequences, they would not keep repeating them.

                40

        • #
          Roy Hogue

          It looks to me that what they can say they achieve counts for more — much more — than what they actually achieve. If that were not so then why have so many schools quit fostering competition among students, quit grading students and the like. But they still say they educate the kids when in fact they have not.

          Thankfully some schools are still working.

          60

    • #
      TedM

      Perfectly correct Bite Back: How can a system based on a lie generate integrity and veracity. It never will it never can.

      100

  • #
    Hat Rack

    Nations claiming credits for something they didn’t do to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. Welcome to the real-life version of “Virtual Reality”.

    260

  • #
    RobK

    Taxing a basic molecule of life on Earth was never going to be easy.
    It’s a tough life being overlord of everything, even for the godly EU bureaucrats.

    110

  • #
    Leonard Lane

    So much for the EU Greenies and their self-righteous noble cause claims. Their cause is money and probably always was.

    150

    • #
      ivan

      Their cause is money and probably always was.

      That fixed it for you – it has always been about money with the unelected EU bureaucrats.

      10

  • #
    Bitter&twisted

    I have a simple rule of thumb.

    Whenever I hear the words “green”, or “smart”, I automatically think “scam”.

    220

  • #
    Graeme No.3

    Since our politicians think(?) that the EU is the font of all ‘environmental’ legislation and will bring in this sort of legislation shortly to Australia, I invite you to buy shares in my new company – The Simpson Desert Forestry Co. We anticipate a very profitable future from NOT cutting down trees there.

    Reminds me of the claim by a retired farmer from the mid North of WA about ‘farmers’ planting tree saplings for payment by a european company. The saplings didn’t survive 12 months with the drought going then, but after 2 years they could ‘replant’ for a further payment. The european company generated carbon credits for sale in Europe.

    130

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      At one time, under the Muldoon Government (I think), New Zealand had a “Sheep Retention Scheme”, whereby farmers were paid not to send all of their lambs to market for fear of lowering the export prices. The supposed size of the sheep population in New Zealand quadrupled overnight.

      If you pay somebody to not do something, they will find an infinite amount of the whatever it is, that they will not do.

      160

      • #
        Rod Stuart

        If my memmory servers correctly, that was near the end of 1980, when the NZ government estimated the population as being 75 million sheep. THINK BIG.

        30

    • #
      Robert Rosicka

      Graeme no3 , put me down for a million shares in your magnificent green carbon initiative .

      50

    • #
      Russ Wood

      Terry Pratchett’s Patrician of the fictional city of Ankh-Morpork was faced with a rat plague. The usual reward of 2p per rat tail didn’t seem to make any difference, even when the city was paying hundreds of dollars a week. The Patrician’s solution? “Tax the rat farms”.

      20

    • #
      Ted O'Brien

      One day a man with a notebook will arrive with his invoices and receipts looking for his trees.

      He will demand his money back.

      00

  • #

    If you do not have clear and accurate measurements, and targets based on the actual marginal difference made, then you will get loopholes like this one. A similar issue applied to the emissions forecasts for COP21 Paris. For China, the USA, Russia and the EU the forecasts were for increasing emissions for decades. This despite in the US and EU emissions being stable or falling. Then, just by these countries being “on board” they save the world. Countries like India, who have declared they will never be “on board” become an irrelevance, as their economic and emissions growth forecasts are set arbitrarily low.
    I looked at the CO2 emissions forecasts 15 months ago, on the last day of 2015. India’s growth forecast made in 2011 was so low that actual GDP in 2015 was over 20% higher than the bogus
    Any country that steps out line, such as the USA under President Trump, is endangering humanity by the mere fact of disagreeing.

    90

  • #
    John F. Hultquist

    Is this “funny money” or did someone actually pay, and someone else get, real money?
    Carbon credits allow one to emit CO2;
    unlike the Church of old when a sinner actually paid to sin.
    This credit thing implies a bookkeeping entry and keep on keeping on with regular emitting activities.

    70

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Bangkok is a good place for a sinner to actually be paid to sin, depending upon gender and inclination, or so I have been told.

      61

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Well yrs, it how you legally defr*”d the public but look righteous doing so….its the perfect cr*me….and a form of racketeering….

      50

  • #
    ren

    Heavy rain in eastern Australia over the next few days could cause flooding.

    50

  • #
    Mark M

    Former Newman government ‘killed off’ profitable [Doomsday Global Warming] company Ecofund

    “One of its targets was Ecofund Queensland, a state-owned carbon (sic) and environmental offsetting and advisory company that was also tasked with buying up land to help reduce Queensland’s greenhouse gas emissions.

    The company was one of the top three carbon (sic) traders in the Australian market and its clients included some of the country’s largest blue chip firms.”

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-20/newman-government-killed-off-profitable-climate-change-company/8280374?pfmredir=sm

    2013: CO2 Australia acquires Ecofund Queensland

    “CO2 Group executive officer Andrew Grant said Ecofund was one of Australia’s largest traders of voluntary carbon offsets and highly regarded in advisory services across renewable energy, environmental and biodiversity offsets.”

    http://www.thefifthestate.com.au/articles/co2-australia-acquires-ecofund-queensland/45294
    . . .
    With ‘powerful cyclone’ Debbie bearing down on Queensland, either Ecofund has failed to prevent any climate change, or is just another green apocalyptic scam.

    82

  • #
    Tdef

    So why is the government forcing Hazelwood to close? Who are we saving and from what? Do we get carbon credits we can trade for
    cash?
    Really the question for Malcolm Turnbull is not whether he will prevent the closure of Hazelwood. The question is why is he forcing it to close? No one is asking the right question.
    As this fr*ud shows it makes no difference but it will cripple Australia and our Green PM is happy with that.

    121

    • #
      TdeF

      Again, the question I would love Malcolm Turnbull to answer is “Why is he forcing the closure of Hazelwood?”, especially in the face of world wide carbon scams. Why is he forcing Australians to punish themselves? For whom, because it makes no different at all to anyone else?

      140

      • #
        David Maddison

        From an IPCC official there is this alarmingly frank and disturbing 2010 statement by Ottmar Edenhofer: “But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy….One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.”

        See original German at http://www.nzz.ch/klimapolitik-verteilt-das-weltvermoegen-neu-1.8373227 and translation at http://www.eike-klima- energie.eu/uploads/media/IPCC_Edenhofer__Climate_Policy_Is_Redistributing_The_World__s_W ealth_.pdf

        In his Wikipedia entry at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottmar_Edenhofer he admits he was influenced by Karl Marx, among others.

        40

      • #
        clive

        Look to the UN.THEY have the answer,TdeF.

        00

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        It makes perfect sense to any Communist who wants to take down the country by hobbling its economy and industry…no?

        Old intel maxim “if something doesnt make sense, you must seek a different sense”, or paraphrasing – some times you have to look at stuff the right way with the right “lens” for it make sense.

        Try this “lens” – those in power are communists who want to bring down our way of life to appease their mythical “Gaia” goddess ( the earth ) and enslave humans under punative and evil laws to control every single aspecyt of human life. CO2 of course are essential to life, so if you control those……

        20

      • #
        truth

        Check out the American woman….Audrey Zebilman…that Turnbull’s hired to head AEMO and run our whole energy system and you’ll see that Turnbull’s claim that coal will be with us for many years has to be bogus….just another scam.

        http://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2015/06/top-energy-regulator-tied-to-bidders-for-state-work-023067

        http://checksandbalancesproject.org/new-york-regulator-zibelman-has-more-questions-to-answer-about-conflicts-of-interest/

        There’s no way this AEMO CEO will have anything to do with coal or gas from everything I’ve read about her so far.

        Zebilman is in total sync with GreenLabor policy it seems…and with Finkel….no coal or gas …50% RE by 2030…intends to make Australia world leader in wind and solar… plus batteries and ‘demand response’…smart meters etc which would require huge interference in our lives and a great deal of coercion IMO….to make such a system reliable enough to power industry.
        No mention of EROI or Stanford and other research that shows that batteries and most storage available or in the pipeline now is unsustainable.
        I think Malcolm Turnbull will drive this country to economic suicide and ruin to kowtow to Europe and his own CAGW delusion.

        00

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Follow the money. Always, follow the money!

      What would Australia in general, and Malcolm Turnbull in particular, stand to gain from the closure of Hazelwood? Could the generators, and associated switch-gear, be sold to somebody else? Could that unstated, “somebody else”, possibly be in Asia?

      Presumably the current owners of the Hazelwood equipment would receive the stated sale price. But could the transaction also attract consulting and facilitation fees?

      Such things have been known to occur, in situations where delicate negotiations are best conducted by senior persons who are fluent in the potential customer’s language.

      80

      • #
        Rod Stuart

        Quite so. That is where the Tasmanian government was trying to market units one and two from Bell Bay Power (very similar but 100 MW each). In fact the crude oil tanks went to Indonesia. However, the Indons were to much on the ball to be tempted by the turbo-generators.

        10

  • #
    Bill Burrows

    Australia has been in this Carbon fiddle game (analogously and with similar intent to this EU scheme) right from the initial signing of the Kyoto Protocol. See: https://www.dropbox.com/home?preview=NET+%27CARBON%27+EMISSIONS+IN+AUSTRALIA.pdf and the various links therein for a broad overview of some of the intricacies of our carbon accounting in the LULUC&F sector and where I think we currently stand.

    Both Labor (through its ‘Carbon Farming Initiative’ and the Libs/Nats (through ‘Direct Action’) have been complicit. “Avoided Deforestation” is the most obvious scam (sounds like the EU version – and I especially like the Papua New Guinea interpretation of it as “selling air” to crazy people from overseas).

    But you have to blame our politicians and bureaucrats (not our farmers/grazier beneficiaries) who have ‘gifted’ rural landholders well over $2 billion so far in future ‘Direct Action’ payments for CO2 stored on their land – based on models and very little (or nil for soil carbon) actual measurements. The scale of these ‘projects’ is huge and consequently the validity/verification of the claimed sinks – especially in our hugely variable semi arid woodlands/shrublands is effectively non-quantifiable. Poor Fellow My Country.

    61

  • #

    The_UK_burns_wood_pellets_imported_from_America_which_are_counted_as_”biomass”_as_replacement_for_”fossil_fuels”.
    You_simply_cannot_make_these_things_up.

    133

    • #
      David Maddison

      Obviously Red Thumb thinks that’s a sensible idea.

      111

      • #
        ROM

        On our red thumbing Trolls;
        .

        Jo’s blog is from the blogs I have looked at over the years, somewhat unique in the way it provides a thumbs up or a thumbs down for anybody to express an opinion on a post without revealing who or what they are or what they stand for.

        It is a Troll paradise for those basement level Trolls who are completely incapable of having any intellectual understanding of a post and are only just capable of reading a name alongside of a comment let alone understanding the contents of a comment.
        Some of them here do however form a deep attachment to some commenters and show their attachment to a particular commenter by always giving that commenter the benefit of their palsied red thumbs at every available oppurtunity.

        I think I’ve got a couple of really faithful Trolls who no doubt have great difficulty in following my thinking [ They arent on their own there! ] but who never spare their palsied red thumbs when it comes to one of my posts.

        However there is a very considerable upside to our Red thumbing Trolls.

        No Troll worth his troll badge can work in isolation.

        To be effective as a decent disruptive Troll, the troll will feel that its work must be widely publicised so that they can collect the kudos for the way in which he / she destroyed that so and so denier and their argument on that stupid climate denier’s forum of JoNova’s by giving the denier commenter another red thumb.

        As in every audience and group of any size there will be a few quiet ones, at least quiet about their doubts on their in-groups professed climate ideology and who are doubtful about the claims made by the loud mouths around them but who hold their peace so as to prevent the massed displeasure of ther group from descending on their person if their doubts and questioning were ever revealed.

        But in the quiet of their own establishment and well away from the madding crowd they will take a good look at just what it is about that JoNova denier’s climate forum that aroused the ire of their in-group of climate trolls.

        And it is likely they will learn quite a lot from their surreptitious reads and studies of the extensive and frequently very enlightening commentary here on Jo’s blog.

        They might never say so or ever admit it openly in the present highly charged and nasty fascist type attempts to stop any discussion or questioning of the current supposedly popular description of climate destruction and the ever impending climate catastrophe. But when push comes to shove and they read it as the skeptics are beginning to get their side of the story and its backing science seen and debated through out the science, media and popular circles, then they will emerge and quietly add their weight to the debate as they see it.

        But with the advantage that they are already familiar with much of the political set up and the science that says that global warming or climate change as it is now called, is entirely natural and just another aspect of our planet’s endless variations including that of its climate, that have existed since it was formed over 4 billion years ago.

        The Trolls are another propaganda avenue that quite likely opens another avenue into the alarmist’s “castrum” that we skeptics would have considerable difficulty in penetrating such a rock hard, hide bound, rigid and misinformed and crude ideology by any other method.

        70

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Since when has red thumb actually upvoted anything? THis is the problem with Socialism – all it can do is tear stuff down….bunch of squarking seagulls that poop on things and fly off….

        20

  • #

    I remember back in the 80s reading of a soft drink exec who wished his industry could find a way to charge for tap water, since it was, after all, the best and commonest way to hydrate. Some time after that, masses of health-conscious people started buying tap water in plastic bottles with sky-blue labels which made references to “mountains” and “springs”.

    No surprise that people in congested cities were soon buying bottled air from exotic locations to breathe. But who could have foreseen a trillion-dollar market in a tiny fraction of thin air? (Actually, the late Enron and the late Lehman Bros could, though their pioneering work for the planet is now forgotten.)

    61

    • #
      Bill Burrows

      Mosomoso – not to forget Bernie Madoff and the legion of Sydney Harbour Bridge sellers completing their apprenticeship before applying their trade as budding politicians.

      40

    • #

      Never_forget_that_Bill_Clinton_urged_and_facilitated_”carbon_trading”._Enron_was_originally_formed_as_a_”carbon_trading”_company._Read_up_on_Enron_and_you_will_agree;_you_can’t_make_this_stuff_up.
      Al_Gore_was_Clinton’s_Vice_President.

      61

  • #
    RodM

    The creation of an artificial market will always lead to rorting just like banning anything leads to a black market.

    70

  • #
    David Maddison

    What about people in Ireland getting paid to heat empty sheds on farms as has been mentioned here before?

    60

  • #
    David Maddison

    I think it is immoral for people to make money soley on the basis of a government granted monopoly or subsidy where the laws of the free market are not allowed to apply.

    Windmills are a classic example and make staggering amounts of money for their owners (elites including unions) for a useless product at the expense of the working and middle classes.

    91

  • #
    Richard111

    This power station in the UK used to burn 36,000 tons of coal a day.

    http://utilitiessavings.co.uk/2013/03/13/drax-power-station-coal-to-biomass/

    I have learned that you need to burn 2 tons of wood chips to get the same energy as from burning 1 ton of coal.

    Those wood chips are shipped from America. This is a much lauded SAVE THE WORLD endeavour.

    What hope is there when lunatics are in charge?

    70

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      When there is a buck to be made…..lunacy is defined by who wins….

      00

    • #
      Gerry, England

      It is like we never made the move from wood to coal and hence started the Industrial Revolution in the first place. Steam power fuelled by coal – not the declining supply of trees – replaced intermittent water and wind power and off we went. Then came oil bringing us petrol and diesel for internal combustion engines.

      20

  • #
    • #
      Gerry, England

      Last year’s Royal Institution Christmas Lecture series had an interesting comparison. In London we have the London Eye ferris wheel and it was how many times could energy sources turn the wheel. Starting with some lead acid batteries we got 6% of one turn. Taking the same weight of lithium batteries got it round to 18%. Use the same weight of petrol and you get 20 whole revolutions. Diesel would have been interesting but it was hydrogen finally that got you 60 revolutions. A very good visual display of energy density.

      20

  • #
    cedarhill

    As evolved, the EU is all about simply stealing money legally. What an outstanding parasite it is. World class even.

    50

  • #

    […] JoNova notes EU countries taking advantage of climate rules loopholes […]

    00

  • #
    Justin Ert

    I can’t get my head around this. Forests and scrub have been monetised to the tune of millions simply by issuing credits as an incentive to not work them, which are in turn sold on an open market, where the cash then gravitates back to the government who issued the permits? We’re talking millions here, and maybe billions over the years… Is this amount of cash large enough to devalue a currency? After all, if credits are issued, they will eventually end up as cash. Is this a covert form of quantitative easing? WTF. Am I missing something?

    20