Rio+20: ICLEI Mem­bers Admit “Bait and Switch” to Boost Cli­mate Agenda
June 18, 2012

Belo Hor­i­zonte, Brazil. To advance pub­lic action on glob­al warm­ing, par­tic­i­pants attend­ing the ICLEI World Con­gress admit­ted today that they are delib­er­ate­ly employ­ing new ter­mi­nol­o­gy to mis­di­rect oppo­nents and gain accep­tance of their efforts to reduce ener­gy use and green­house gas­es. By uti­liz­ing terms like “sus­tain­abil­i­ty” and “sus­tain­able devel­op­ment,” the group wants to mask its objec­tives and dis­arm would-be crit­ics who might oth­er­wise oppose their agen­da, ICLEI atten­dees con­fid­ed with CFACT rep­re­sen­ta­tives at the conference.

Hux­ley Lawler, Exec­u­tive Coor­di­na­tor of Envi­ron­ment and Cli­mate Change of the Gold Coast City Coun­cil in Aus­tralia (an ICLEI mem­ber), told CFACT Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Craig Ruck­er blunt­ly that “we don’t use the term cli­mate change any­more. It’s sus­tain­able devel­op­ment.” Ruck­er and CFACT staffer Abdul Kama­ra con­firmed this in con­ver­sa­tions with oth­er del­e­gates, includ­ing Paul Cham­bers, a Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Man­ag­er for the Auck­land Coun­cil in New Zealand. Cham­bers said it is impor­tant to use inex­act envi­ron­ment pro­tec­tion ter­mi­nol­o­gy when deal­ing with con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ments, like the one he says cur­rent­ly heads his nation.

This rev­e­la­tion by ICLEI World Con­gress atten­dees comes at a time when pub­lic sup­port for glob­al warm­ing is weak­en­ing. It reflects a pro­found change in strat­e­gy by pro­po­nents of cli­mate action and world gov­er­nance, and an admis­sion that skep­tics of man­made glob­al warm­ing con­tin­ue to gain ground in shap­ing pub­lic opinion.

ICLEI stands for the Inter­na­tion­al Coun­cil for Local Envi­ron­men­tal Ini­tia­tives. It was found­ed in 1990 to advance “sus­tain­able devel­op­ment,” as enshrined in a doc­u­ment called “Agen­da 21,” by per­suad­ing local gov­ern­ments around the globe to sup­port restric­tions on ener­gy use and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment. ICLEI claims to rep­re­sent over 1,200 cities inter­na­tion­al­ly. Accord­ing to one of its founders, Hans Mon­ning­hoff of Ger­many, cities become part of the orga­ni­za­tion by pay­ing annu­al mem­ber­ship fees, which vary accord­ing to their pop­u­la­tion. It for­mal­ly changed its name in 2003 to “ICLEI – Local Gov­ern­ments for Sus­tain­abil­i­ty” to pro­mote an even broad­er ener­gy, eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal agenda.

Anoth­er speak­er at the ICLEI World Con­gress admit­ted today that cre­at­ing car­bon neu­tral cities, an impor­tant ICLEI goal, will like­ly kill jobs and dis­place busi­ness­es that are unable to adapt to restric­tive poli­cies that raise ener­gy prices or reduce ener­gy reli­a­bil­i­ty. Address­ing a ques­tion about the impact of car­bon neu­tral poli­cies on the econ­o­my dur­ing a ses­sion on “Account­ing and Report­ing of Low Car­bon Cities,” Hans Karsten said, “There is no guar­an­tee that com­pa­nies doing busi­ness today will be doing busi­ness in 20 years.” The head of Tech­ni­cal and Envi­ron­men­tal Admin­is­tra­tion for Copen­hagen, Den­mark, Karsten lat­er revealed that it was his city’s intent to have zero car­bon emis­sions by 2025, with half the res­i­dents rid­ing to work by bicycle.

“Think­ing they can speak can­did­ly on their home turf, ICLEI speak­ers reveal an unwork­able eco­nom­ic agen­da,” said CFACT Pres­i­dent David Roth­bard. “ICLEI’s bait and switch – sub­sti­tut­ing ‘sus­tain­able devel­op­ment’ for ‘cli­mate change’ – is shame­less and decep­tive. Peo­ple need to under­stand ICLEI’s real agen­da, before it cons oth­er local gov­ern­ments into join­ing. ICLEI is weav­ing a crafty spider’s web that will entan­gle com­mu­ni­ties before they real­ize how its restric­tive rules will kill jobs and reduce free­doms and liv­ing standards.”

Source:  http://cfact.tv/2012/06/18/iclei-members-admit-bait-and-switch-to-boost-climate-agenda/