Let’s take a closer look at the specifics of this wealth-transfer scheme.
Reading the reports, one learns that the COP29 delegates expect private interests to account for a significant portion of the promised sums. But what gives these delegates, or the governments that appointed these delegates, the power to promise large expenditures by private interests? The very meaning of “private” is “outside of government control.” I suspect that the COP29 version of “private” refers to green energy companies that receive substantial government subsidies and therefore are not truly private, but dependent on and subservient to the will of the governments funding them.
By the way, who exactly are these delegates who have promised to transfer hundreds of billions of dollars per year from more prosperous societies to less developed societies? Are they the elected legislative representatives of the taxpayers? No. Rather, they are executive appointees and bureaucrats. This unseemly enterprise is about as undemocratic as can be.
The reports also state that representatives from many of the poorer countries are vigorously complaining that the handouts promised to them are insufficient and unfair. As Gomer Pyle would say, “Surprise, surprise, surprise!” This is how the game is played: Make the wealthier societies feel guilty for having had the bad manners to prosper.
There is an interesting drama lurking just below the surface of this COP29 agreement. The U.N. organizers of COP29 have explicitly stated that part of the wealth transfers to the poor countries will be used for developing wind and solar energy. This is a brutally hypocritical maneuver. I agree with the numerous political and thought leaders in poorer countries who have passionately denounced the “greens” in rich countries for trying to prevent poor countries from exploiting the same fossil fuels that powered the economic development and prosperity of the rich countries.
Like so many foreign aid programs, this aid for poor countries has strings attached to it. These countries don’t have the technical expertise to build wind and solar installations themselves, so a big chunk of such “aid” will be redirected to corporate enterprises in the countries making the donations. Why would foreign leaders agree to such a scheme? Because they will control some of those funds and use them to enhance their own political power and probably their personal bank accounts, too. That is the way the foreign aid game has so often been played—foreign aid props up poor governance and thereby retards the economic development that the people in those countries so desperately need.
Political leaders in poorer countries obviously love foreign aid gravy trains, but there are others who stand to skim some money from such gigantic wealth transfers. The COP29 agreement, understandably, did not provide a detailed explanation of what routes the proposed money transfers will take. Will the U.S. Treasury and other national treasuries send money directly to the governments of the designated recipient countries? But who will decide how much money should be sent to country A, B, C, etc.?
Or will the money go to the U.N., where unelected socialistic bureaucrats oversee the distribution of funds? If so, will some of the money end up in the bank accounts of the U.N. or some of its employees? Will anyone be monitoring how monies are redistributed? What could possibly go wrong?
The whole COP29 money transfer plan brings to mind German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck’s comment that it is better for people not to learn too much about how laws and sausages are made. Let’s hope that President-elect Donald Trump does not send anyone to next year’s COP convention.
