“This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy.”
Is this quote from a) a climate change skeptic, or b) an official from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change?
Climate change skeptics have long theorized about ulterior motives behind attempts to legislate and regulate man-made global warming. This speculation reached a fever pitch after data from the University of East Anglia — widely referenced by the United Nations — was found to be flawed and private emails pointed to a broader conspiracy to falsify the so-called evidence.
But this speculation is only likely to grow after a leading member of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) told a German news outlet, “[W]e redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy.” Via the Media Research Center, Swiss NZZ Online Sunday interviews Ottmar Edenhofer of the U.N. (emphases mine):
(NZZ AM SONNTAG): The new thing about your proposal for a Global Deal is the stress on the importance of development policy for climate policy. Until now, many think of aid when they hear development policies.
(OTTMAR EDENHOFER, UN IPCC OFFICIAL): That will change immediately if global emission rights are distributed. If this happens, on a per capita basis, then Africa will be the big winner, and huge amounts of money will flow there. This will have enormous implications for development policy. And it will raise the question if these countries can deal responsibly with so much money at all.
(NZZ): That does not sound anymore like the climate policy that we know.
(EDENHOFER): Basically it’s a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization.