Kyoto: the process

As outrageous as the Kyoto Protocol is, the process by which it was developed is even worse. At the United Nations, decisions are reached through the "consensus" process. Consensus is not unanimity, as has been repeatedly declared by Michael Zammit Cutajar, Executive Secretary to the Framework Convention on Climate Change. Nor is consensus the absence of expressed objection, as demonstrated by Raul Estrada, Chairman of the Ad Hoc Group on the Berlin Mandate, when he ruled that a consensus had been reached despite the expressed objection of the United States, Canada, and Russia. Estrada further announced that a two-thirds majority would be required to overturn his ruling. What then is consensus? The sad truth is, as Michael Cutajar told a reporter in Geneva, Switzerland, "consensus is very much up to the presiding officer."

Consensus is said to be a "democratic" process through which all interested parties present their views on an issue and eventually persuade each other to accept a common position. Nothing could be further from the truth. The consensus process must have a starting point, a proposed position which participants are expected to embrace. Negotiations toward climate change treaty started in 1990 with the proposition that global warming was occurring, that it was bad, and that it was caused by human use of fossil fuels. That presupposition was clearly in place by the conveners of the first working groups charged with developing the treaty text. It is the same presupposition that caused the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to be created. The adoption of the treaty in 1992, and now the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, affirms both the presupposition, and the consensus process which resulted in ultimate adoption. In the climate change negotiations, the presupposition is based on belief and hope, rather than upon scientific evidence. The UN working group that prepared the treaty was well underway before the IPCC reached its first conclusions, which were also reached by consensus.

The consensus process does not allow all interested parties to present their views; only selected individuals are allowed to participate. And then, only selected participants are allowed to speak. A good facilitator - the presiding officer - will allow balanced "interventions" (speeches) from a representative number of participants and then declare that a consensus has been reached which very much resembles the presupposition raised at the starting point. In doing so, the process gives the appearance of democracy in action and implies a unanimous consent of the participants.
Not so! To reach the Kyoto Protocol, the Conference of the Parties was divided into several subsidiary bodies, working groups, non-groups, and contact groups - all appointed by the presiding officer. Each had a special task to deal with various elements of the Protocol. The meetings were almost exclusively closed to observers and to the press. No written minutes were taken. Oral reports were given to the Conference of the Parties meeting in plenary sessions, which were then condensed into written reports by the staff of the UN. A constant complaint by the delegates throughout the two-year negotiating session is that the written reports that show up in the official record do not resemble the events that occurred in the private meetings.

The President of the Conference of the Parties is "elected" each year, along with seven Vice Presidents and a Rapporteur, which constitutes the UNFCCC "Bureau." The current President, Mr. Hiroshi Ohki (Japan) was "recommended" by the outgoing President, Chen Chimutengwende from Zimbabwe. The President is "elected" by acclamation, with no other names submitted by anyone. The President then identifies his list of Vice Presidents who are also "elected" by acclamation. There is no such thing as campaigning for office: the officers are predetermined by a rotating scheme to assure geographical balance and the appearance of a democratic process.

The scam election process puts in place official delegates to serve as the "Bureau," which is roughly the same as an executive committee. Officers only serve one-year terms. The result is that the UN staff is greatly empowered. The staff is there year after year; the officers come and go. Moreover, if the elected officers ever want to be appointed to any future choice positions, they had better not cross the UN staff. It is the staff that recommends who goes where and which delegates get the plum assignments. The Executive Secretary, the CEO, if you will, of the entire Climate Change Convention, got his start in the UN working in Maurice Strong's office in 1970-1971 during the preparations for the First Earth Summit in Stockholm, which Strong chaired. Strong also headed the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio at which the Climate Change Treaty was adopted.

The consensus process ensures only that the outcome of a particular event will be what the conveners want. In no way does it reflect a democratic process or even agreement among the participants. The consensus process is the "new decision process" heralded by the President's Council on Sustainable Development (Belief Statement number 8) and it is now being used as a matter of course by all federal agencies as the mechanism to advance the administration's agenda of social engineering. The chief purpose of using the consensus process is to bypass duly elected representatives of the people where an open debate and public vote can stop a bad policy cold.

Scripture for your consideration:
"Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord! And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the amorites, in whose land you dwell (humanism, pantheism, Gaia, the earth, etc). But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." -Joshua 24:14-15

Mikhail Gorbachev said, "President Clinton will be a success if he can make America the creator of a new world order based on consensus."

But God's Word says, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." (Romans 12:2)