Where Freedom and Energy Intersect

The UN’s Rio+20 meeting will take place in June of this year. Rio+20 is being held on the twentieth anniversary of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, popularized by Al Gore.

Rio+20 is where freedom and energy intersect.

My earlier article, Rio+20 Alert cited the report on sustainability by the UN’s High-level Panel on Global Sustainability, which stated:

• “Achieving sustainability requires us to transform the global economy.”

The UN’s report has now been followed by a report from the Earth System Governance Research Alliance, which says:

• “[Global warming] requires fundamental reorientation and restructuring of national and international institutions toward more effective Earth system governance and planetary stewardship …”

They state further that:

• A “constitutional moment is required”

The group also calls for the creation of a UN Sustainable Development Council to better integrate sustainable development concerns across the UN system.

This is an outrageous threat to the United States, because the group is calling for no member of the UN to be able to thwart the will of the majority … in other words the United States would be forced to adhere to any rulings or actions taken by the UN that fall under the sustainability umbrella.

As reported by the BBC,

• “The most radical idea in procedural terms is introducing majority voting in UN fora to prevent a few recalcitrant nations from blocking the will of the vast majority.

“There have been many times in the past when just one or two countries held up progress in UN processes such as the climate change convention.” (This refers to the United States not ratifying the Kyoto protocol.)

Under the proposals being formulated for Rio+20, the United States wouldn’t have the protection of a veto, such as it has in the UN’s Security Council.

Sustainability is all about controlling energy.

The Malthusian doctrine is alive and well in the eyes of the United Nations, though now it is referred to as the framework of “planetary boundaries” designed to define a “safe operating space for humanity”.

See the earlier Rio+20 Alert article that demonstrated how sustainability controls energy. Specifically by:

• Incorporating social and environmental costs in regulating and pricing of goods and services.
• Expanding how we measure progress in sustainable development by creating a sustainable development index.

Very little is being reported in our media about Rio+20, though Rio+20 could have a huge impact on the United States.

Rio+20 is the latest annual meeting under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The 1992 Rio conference created the UNFCCC, a treaty that WAS ratified by the United States. The United States is a member of the UNFCCC and has attended its annual meetings since 1992. The United States has been consistently out voted by roughly 190 to 1, and has been ostracized at these meetings for not adhering to the so-called will of the majority. At the Bali meeting, our delegation was booed by virtually every other delegation because of a planned “no” vote.

This administration will send our delegation to Rio+20. It will be interesting to see how our delegation behaves, and what we agree to under our existing UNFCCC treaty commitment.

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