U.N. Climate Fund Promised Billions to Poor Nations. For Some, the Wait Is Long.

This article demonstrates the true purpose of "Climate Policy"; 1) accumulation of power for the super state. 2) redistribution of wealth from America to the third world. 1:38EST

The author states: "The United States had promised to contribute $3 billion — more than any other country, though less than other donors on a per-capita basis — of which the Obama administration delivered $1 billion." Indeed, the Obama administration and John Kerry's State Department said the US would contribute $3 billion. They also said this was not an obligation. Obligating the US to provide such sums to a mulitlateral effort would make the Paris climate 'agreement' a treaty by definition, requiring ratification by Congress. By not submitting this treaty for ratification, President Obama negated any obligation under the agreement. And Obama used sleight-of-hand to 'free up' funds in the State Department for other purposes, 'designating' them for climate change mitigation, a purpose never funded by Congress. Call it the Obama-Kerry Climate Sluch Fund. More money? No. We should not provide such funding until this treaty is ratified.

Why no NYT coverage of the BioScience letter petition of 15,000 climate scientists that was widely reported yesterday?

The importance of scaling up climate financing cannot be overstated. The challenge lies with making objective assessments of long-term risks and correctly performing triage on funding requests. The hard truth is that many places are going to become uninhabitable in the coming decades and mass resettlement is often the only real option. Allocating scarce funding for infrastructure investments in such places makes no sense, financial or otherwise. Climate finance has to be integrated into a framework of comprehensive development portfolio planning - acknowledging that project success or failure is determined by numerous dependencies arising from local contexts. In many cases, the needed foundations are absent or underdeveloped. Many places still need to make significant investments in building capacity - strengthening governance, management and operational systems - before they can absorb any financing, let alone the scaled-up amounts envisioned for the coming years. The Haiti earthquake recovery effort stands as a glaring example of the type of corruption, mismanagement and fraud and abuse that occurs when money has to be rapidly mobilized in the absence of necessary control and compliance systems. The private sector will have to take a far more critical view of funding requests - including identifying missing but necessary prerequisites - and apply much greater pressure to mitigate project risks. Transparency is becoming an existential imperative on a planetary scale.

Let me get this straight. Under COP21, the developed nations pledged over $100 Billion to reduce GHG emissions and assist developing nations combat climate change. Yet, there are virtually no processes or controls ensuring transparency of the fund. Money is hemorrhaging to dubious projects. Hundreds of millions of dollars have already been highjacked to sweeten the returns of private sector "green" enterprises. The people of the island nation of Tarawa, which US Marines shed much blood and treasure to liberate during WW II, desperately need help, but can't get any. Not to mention that scientists admit the CO2 emission aspirations are too little too late. Doesn't all this support the position of the current administration that COP21 is a "bad deal" in need of a do over? The centralized government approach for solving climate change must be revamped. Unfortunately, Milton Friedman was spot on about government in charge of the Sahara.

As one of the most inefficient, incompetent, political and corrupt organization around, it is a sin to give UN any control over the absolutely critical mitigation of our climate's demise.

So, is this fund part of the climate change pact or not? It might increase political support for the agreement in the U.S. if we could withdraw from this bureaucratic slush fund, but continue to be part of the climate accord itself. The U.S. could continue to address the $3 billion towards climate change, but under executive branch and congressional oversight. We could, for example, just give money directly to Kiribati for their desalination plant instead of this ridiculous half million dollar grant just to make an application to the U.N. All U.S. taxpayers, whether they're interested in climate change or not, should feel better about keeping this money under our control.

Lots of money being thrown at the problem of rising sea levels. Unless some significant portion of it is earmarked for family planning (aka population stability) it might as well be thrown down a rathole.

Withdrawing from the Paris Accord was a horrible decision, but withdrawing from this poorly run fund is fine by me.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that the economic agendas of the some of the big polluters, i.e., China and India, are completely at odds with the lofty goals of the Paris accord. And, if past history is any indication of what the likely outcome is going to be, I would not bet on the C02 levels going down sufficiently fast to avoid serious changes in the global ecosystems. It would be better, IMHO, to plan for those changes and begin strengthening the infrastructure so that the loss of life and property can be minimize. Sorry kiddo, but the times are a-changing and there is no going back to the way it used to be back when the world was young and pristine . . .

The pledges are unenforceable and, in any event, the amount of money is trivial in relation to the magnitude of the problem.