Read full story: http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-economy/chinas-carbon-trading-debut-defies-doubters-20121012-27hti.html#ixzz294uj9pYy
China’s first steps to build what is destined to be the world’s
second-biggest emissions market are boosting the prospects for fledgling
programs from Australia to California.
Four cement makers in
China, the world’s biggest emitter, bought 1.3 million pollution permits
for 60 yuan ($9) a metric ton last month in Guangdong. The province
plans the largest of seven pilot programs for a proposed national market
within three years. Exchanges will trade permits to emit an estimated 1
billion metric tons of greenhouse gases a year by 2015, close to half
the volume in the European Union system.
By setting its own
emission limits and allowing polluters to buy and sell permits, China’s
domestic market is set to dwarf its own participation in the UN market,
Bloomberg New Energy Finance forecasts...
Showing posts with label bloomberg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bloomberg. Show all posts
Friday, October 12, 2012
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Paying the UN to steal a NY park - NYPOST.com
Paying the UN to steal a NY park - NYPOST.com
The United States is going broke, and the United Nations is morally bankrupt. So why should US taxpayers pay for UN bureaucrats to get swanky new offices -- destroying a New York City park in the process?
It’s all poised to happen, if the UN project can clear a key hurdle by Oct. 10.
For nearly a decade, the United Nations and the Bloomberg administration have eyed Robert Moses Playground, a small city park just south of UN headquarters, as the site for a new tower -- as tall as 505 feet -- in which to “consolidate” UN offices now scattered across the city.
The city would sell the park to the UN Development Corp. -- a state public-benefit corporation (on whose board sits Mayor Bloomberg’s sister, Marjorie Tiven) that manages UN real-estate needs. Once the corporation builds the new tower, the United Nations would supposedly vacate UN Plaza 1 and 2, which the city would put up for sale.
The money from these real-estate transactions would go into a special fund for East Side development, which could then cover the $150 million or more cost of completing the East Side “greenway” with an “esplanade” (complete with bike paths, of course) built over the water from 38th Street to 60th Street.
This June, the state Legislature finally cleared the way for the park to be “alienated” for sale as real estate. But that “alienation” won’t happen if a “Memorandum of Understanding” isn’t reached by Oct. 10. Needed are OKs from the mayor, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, as well as the local representatives, Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh and state Sen. Liz Krueger.
Many in the neighborhood pray that one of the politicians will refuse.
The East End Hockey Association, which has played at Robert Moses since 1972, opposes the swap. And Vivienne Gilbert, co-op president of 5 Tudor City Place, says area residents are worried about the project’s effect on their safety and quality of life.
Land next to the park is slated to become housing and office towers, so residents are especially concerned about light and air. The crowding caused by the new development, Gilbert adds, makes it all the more important to keep the playground open as recreational space.
Then there’s security. Not only does the park sit atop the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, but fitting a 39-story tower on the cramped site wouldn’t allow much “setback” from the street. These factors, Gilbert explains, increase the building’s appeal as a terrorist target -- and would require even stricter security in a neighborhood that already sometimes stifles under it.
Kavanagh insists that security concerns will be addressed, and that no plan will move forward unless adequate substitute park space is found; he’s “optimistic that we will work out a deal that is a win for the community.”
But there’s also the bigger picture: a potential multimillion-dollar bill for federal taxpayers.
As Heritage Foundation fellow Brett Schaefer noted in a recent paper, the United Nations would ultimately pay the UNDC for the tower -- but Uncle Sam shoulders a fifth or more of the UN budget. Estimates of the project’s cost run as high as $475 million.
Plus, the savings of “consolidating” UN staff into the new tower may not materialize. According to Schaefer, the United Nations pays half the market rate at UN Plaza 1 and 2; the new tower would mean giving up those favorable rents.
If it consolidates at all: Fox News recently reported that Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has gone on a hiring binge of late, increasing the size of his Secretariat from 2008 to 2009 by nearly 38 percent.
Americans may pay an even bigger price. Typically, the UNDC has financed its development through tax-exempt bonds, which amount to a subsidy from federal, state and local taxpayers. (A spokesman for a coalition of groups championing the project, David Cantor, says the UNDC will use tax-exempt bonds for at most a portion of the building.)
The question, however, is why US taxpayers would pay a dime toward this project. At a time when we’re hugely in debt, and the United Nations is busy pushing Palestinian statehood and fêting Iranian nut-job Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, why should we fork over millions of dollars -- and a city park -- to make the United Nations’ dream of nicer, more convenient offices come true?
Proponents of the project say it’s not a done deal, pointing to hurdles beyond the Oct. 10 deadline. But once such projects get rolling, they become almost impossible to resist.
The best bet would be to stop the project now -- before it’s too late.
Meghan Clyne is managing editor of National Affairs.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Bloomberg.Com: - U.S. Should Show Its Support for UN by Trying to Fix It: View
click here to view this story on Bloomberg.com
The United Nations is essential but deeply flawed. We strongly support the institution, but encourage efforts to make it more effective and efficient.
For much of the world, the UN is the world’s most important international organization. So it is good news that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is prepared to take a leading role in coordinating economic assistance and supporting Libyan democracy. The UN sometimes has international legitimacy that Western diplomacy lacks and is uniquely qualified to take on such a mission. But conflict resolution isn’t the only way the UN helps advance Western interests.
Peacekeeping is another. Almost 120,000 military and civilian UN peacekeepers are now deployed at 16 crisis spots around the world -- at a total cost of less than $8 billion. In places like Sudan, Congo, East Timor and Ivory Coast, the UN is saving lives, providing security for relief organizations and economic development experts, and helping national reconciliation take hold. If the UN didn’t exist, Western countries would be faced with the horrible choice of either becoming involved in those conflicts themselves or letting hundreds of thousands of innocents die. As UN operations draw troops from the entire world (more than 110 countries are currently contributing), they make it easier for the U.S. and Europe to concentrate on more difficult missions such as the one in Afghanistan.
UN Security Council resolutions that tightened sanctions on Iran and North Korea were major accomplishments, for which President Barack Obama and UN Ambassador Susan Ricedeserve credit. By showing a willingness to listen to others Rice has improved U.S. relations with senior UN officials and other key delegations. But Obama and Rice have been less successful in explaining to the American people why supporting the UN is in the U.S.’s interest.
Financial Accountability
American taxpayers spend about $3.35 billion every year on the UN. They have a right to insist that this money be spent well. Ban should do more to show that it is.
Ban seems to have gotten the message. He has strengthened the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services, which was established in 1994 to investigate allegations of corruption and evaluate UN programs. For most of the past 16 years, that office floundered under ineffective leadership. Things began to change in September 2010 under Carman Lapointe, a well regarded Canadian who Ban appointed. Ban also deserves credit for mandating a 3 percent across-the-board budget cut for all UN agencies in response to the economic difficulties facing many member states. But he could do more by trimming the UN’s personnel costs and dismissing sub-par performers.
Human Rights
Ban could also use his bully pulpit to support the principles embedded in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For most of his first term as secretary general, which began in 2007, Ban was reluctant to criticize member states. But recently he has begun to speak out. Earlier this month, he said publicly that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal crackdown on protesters was “totally unacceptable,” that Assad will be held accountable, and that he has “lost all sense of humanity.” Also encouraging was the Aug. 23 vote by the UN Human Rights Council to send an “independent commission of inquiry to investigate” violations of human rights in Syria and its condemnation of “continued grave and systematic human rights violations by Syrian authorities.”
Targeting Israel
But the UN’s credibility on human rights issues is undermined by the Council’s undue focus on Israel. We accept that Israel’s conduct in the occupied territories merits criticism, but unlike Syria and Libya, Israel isn’t bombarding civilians on a daily basis. Yet Israel is the only country that is targeted with a permanent item on the Council’s agenda. Not North Korea, not Cuba, notZimbabwe -- only Israel. While Ban lacks the authority to prevent the Council from politicizing human rights, he can and should condemn it.
He should also forcefully address the case of Richard Falk, the Council’s special rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories. Falk has defended Palestinian suicide bombers, compared Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to Nazi treatment of Jews, claimed that there was an “apparent coverup” by the U.S. government of the Sept. 11 attacks, and published a cartoon on his blog depicting a dog wearing a Jewish skullcap and a “USA” sweater urinating on Lady Justice and chewing on human bones.
Over the Line
As an American citizen, Falk has the right to say whatever he wants about Israel, or the U.S. As an international civil servant he has the right to criticize either nation’s policies or actions. But Falk’s statements are so far over the line, he deserves to be removed from his UN position. Falk later apologized and acknowledged that the cartoon was anti-Semitic (though he said he initially thought it was only anti-American). While Ban has called for Falk’s dismissal, that isn’t enough. He needs to push Navanethem Pillay, the high commissioner for human rights, to ask the 47 countries that are members of the Council to remove him.
Ban will begin his second five-year term as secretary general on Jan. 1. A strong relationship between the U.S. and UN is in the interests of both. Building that relationship will depend as much on Ban as on Obama.
To contact the Bloomberg View editorial board: view@bloomberg.net.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
U.S. Footing $100M Bill for U.N. Security Upgrade
click here for story on FOXNEWS
Published February 09, 2011 | FoxNews.com
Months after top New York City officials expressed intense behind-the-scenes frustration at the security vulnerabilities at the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan, the U.N. is now planning to spend $100 million -- donated by the U.S. -- on the upgrade.
That has created a new controversy: critics want to know why the U.S. is footing the entire bill, and why that money is not being credited against U.S. dues for the following year.
“If the U.S. overpays the U.N., those funds should be returned in full to the U.S. Treasury,” declared Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “To allow the U.N. to redirect those U.S. taxpayer dollars for unrelated projects is unjustifiable.” Moreover, she says, “by allowing the U.N. to reap the U.S. surplus as a slush fund for construction, the State Department wants to stick U.S. taxpayers with 100 percent of the cost, instead of the 22 percent that the U.S. would be responsible for under normal procedures.”
Ros-Lehtinen is leading a charge in the House of Representatives Wednesday, with a bill that demands the U.N. refund not only the $100 million but the entire $179 million overpayment collected from the U.S. for the United Nations Tax Equalization Fund (TEF), an obscure financial device used to reimburse U.S. citizens who work for the U.N. for U.S. income taxes they pay. (The U.S. is the only major country to levy income taxes on U.N. salaries.)
Ros-Lehtinen calls the refund demand “a small step toward restoring sanity to our U.N. policy and government spending.”
Few expected the bill, which required two-thirds approval, to pass — and it didn’t, failing 259-169. But it is an early salvo in House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s online YouCut campaign to get public backing behind the Republican push to cut the mammoth U.S. deficit. Voters pushed the measure to the head of the queue in an online poll used to set YouCut’s weekly priorities.
There was at least one additional problem with the proposed measure: the $100 million in security money is no longer in the TEF, a senior State Department official told Fox News. It has already been moved by the U.N. into a separate security account. The remainder of the TEF balance will apparently be spent as U.N. financial rules say it should be, as a credit against U.S. dues for U.N. membership next year. According to the U.N., a previous U.S. overpayment was used exactly in this fashion, in 1997.
CLICK HERE FOR THE U.N. FINANCIAL RULE
While the battle over funding the U.N. grows heated, New York City officials are relieved that something is finally going to be done about some of the U.N.’s glaring vulnerabilities to terrorist attacks.
Among other things, the U.N. complex Conference Building, which houses the Security Council, hangs directly over the East Side’s Franklin Delano Roosevelt highway, while an exit ramp from the same thoroughfare curves around the south end of the complex, near the U.N. library. On the west side of the complex, U.N. buildings are only a few yards away from busy First Avenue.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly have long been frustrated by the U.N.’s inaction at dealing with the security issues, even as the U.N. complex has been emptied of many occupants while it currently undergoes a $1.8 billion facelift.
As Fox News reported last September, Bloomberg personally wrote to Secretary of StateHillary Clinton about the issue, and other officials bluntly expressed similar concerns to the State Department, which is the official U.S. interlocutor with the U.N. But the behind-the-scenes dialogue about security improvements was apparently never-ending—with one big issue being who was going to pay for any changes.
The decision to use TEF money apparently solves that problem, at least from the U.N.’s point of view, and a senior State Department official made clear to Fox News that the U.S. government was willing to go along.
“In this case the United Nations notified the State Department that it intended to use [TEF funds] for security enhancement,” said U.S. Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy. “Since the money was already in their hands, the U.S. had no objection to the use in the upgrade.”
So why is the U.S. picking up the entire tab, rather than the 22 percent share it is paying for the overall U.N. renovation?
“This is being done at the same time as the U.N. renovation, but it is a separate project,” Kennedy told Fox News. It is considered separate because there are “other ways to do the project” that would not involve the U.N. at all, such as closing major New York City thoroughfares. But that, Kennedy said, was “not feasible.”
For its part, the U.N. explained both the security upgrades and the bill-paying by carefully putting the ball back in the U.S. court. In response to questions from Fox News, a U.N. spokesman said that “the present discussion about additional security upgrades reflects heightened security concerns by the Host Country [the U.S.] and U.N. security authorities. The U.S., under its Host Country obligations, is funding these new security upgrades.”
What will the money be used for? State Department officials were understandably reluctant to provide much detail. In talking points provided to Fox News, one official said it would be used in part to “reinforce and reconfigure U.N. headquarters facilities.”
In a letter sent earlier this year to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, however, the State Department indicated that changes are planned for First Avenue and the Conference Building, with additional measures still under consideration.
While no-one is likely to object to the security changes, the U.S.-U.N. deal on the financing of the changes is unlikely to satisfy U.N. critics like House Foreign Affairs chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen.
“The U.N. and the [Obama] Administration are treating this overpayment like found money, but it’s not,“ she had already declared in a press release, pointing to the U.N. rule that says the money should be used as a payment against next year’s U.S. dues. “The $179 million extra that the U.S. paid into the UN Tax Equalization fund should be refunded to the American people immediately.”
Brett Schaefer, a U.N. expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation, agrees.
“The fact that the U.S. has failed to make such a simple request is a disservice to the American taxpayer.”
New York City officials, however, are likely to weigh that against a feeling that something finally is being done to end a bureaucratic impasse that threatens the city.
George Russell is executive editor of Fox News.
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