Joe Biden and his acolytes made a big deal about his diplomacy chops as contrasted to President Trump during the days of his 2020 presidential campaign.

"America is back!" he yawped, shortly after taking office.

So here's his way of making America popular abroad:

ABU DHABI, Jan 15 (Reuters) - U.S. climate envoy John Kerry on Sunday outlined core principles for a "high-integrity" carbon offset plan meant to help developing nations speed their energy transition, and next steps including establishing a consultative group.

The Energy Transition Accelerator (ETA), first announced at last year's COP27 climate conference, is being developed by the United States with the Bezos Earth Fund and the Rockefeller Foundation to mobilise private capital.

Kerry told the Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum in Abu Dhabi the aim was to create bankable deals to accelerate reduction of emissions, stressing that the ETA was not a substitute for other funding sources and would be time-limited.

"We believe you can have high-integrity, accountable, transparent credit which will help us to be able to put some money on the table," he said, acknowledging widespread criticism of voluntary carbon offset schemes.

John Kerry is his climate czar, and he's making all those slackadaisical third-world countries out there an offer they can't refuse.  Go green, partner with some greenie billionaires and oligarchs, get carbon credits, convert it to some kind of dished out foreign aid, and not just for companies, but sovereigns.

Chile, which has already over-embraced green energy and bought itself some economic stagnation as a result, and which isn't by any normal standards a developing country, as well as corruption-happy Nigeria, which is, are the two nations that have signed on to the "incentive" program so far.

Going green is a horrible idea for the Third World, as it will drive energy prices up in the poorest countries, leading to job and investment loss.  Ultimately, it will set their capitals on fire, as happened in Sri Lanka.  But that's a matter of no concern to Kerry.  The important thing is that the Third World gets those wind turbines whirring, and never mind about providing jobs or rising living standards to their locals.  If a tiny oligarchy benefits, he's comfortable with that.  Like Joe Biden, Kerry gets his apocryphal Marie Antoinette on with a "let them make solar panels" argument that this nonsense will make them rich.

It's a hideous idea, amounting to a "to do" list for the Third World, and in more ways than one.

The project, whose murky, muddled framework is described on the Rockefeller Foundation's website here, is, well, a joint oligarch-NGO–State Department operation.  Kind of like, well, you know, the United Fruit Company, which one film claims once involved the Rockefellers as shareholders.  We don't know if that's true, but we do know that the Rockefellers got their enormous fortune from oil.  We do know that Jeff Bezos, the other partner here, operates mail facilities in sweatshop conditions, something quite a few third-world locals will notice.

Now they bankroll left-wing causes, particularly greenie ones, telling everyone else to go green, despite the absence of evidence that any man-caused global warming exists at all.  Oil for me, bird Cuisinarts and rare-earth child exploitation at monster prices for you.  They made their pile off oil and other things and want to make sure that other nations can't make a pile for themselves off oil, too.

Worse still, Kerry's scheme tells these countries to give up their sovereignty and natural plans for development in order to take instructions from a multilateral...committee.  Sound attractive?  Sure, there's money in it for them, but don't imagine there won't be a dollop of resentment at having to jump through Kerry's virtue-signaling hoops to get it.

Worse than even that, this so-called aid program is going head to head with China's expansionist activities, such as its Belt and Road Initiative, which offers out huge loans and investments in return for access to ports and other strategic assets, sometimes on the default model, which often happens, and other times as part of the deal.  How can this Kerry-and-the-oligarchs global warming program compete with that?  Third-world countries, good and bad, will ask themselves whether getting a fancy new port complex is better or the feel-good sense of "going green" in hopes of pleasing the Davos crowd, and they will make their decisions accordingly.

Perhaps grossest of all, even Reuters notes that these programs, and apparently there have been many others, are natural third-world corruption-fests:

Such schemes, in which companies get emissions credits in return for channelling cash to poor countries that cut their carbon output, have often been riddled with fraud and double-counting.

"There are only two purposes for which we will allow someone to be able to buy a credit - one, to be closing down or transitioning existing fossil fuel facility that is providing power, and two, for the actual deployment of renewables that will replace current dirty sourcing," Kerry said.

Shut down your oil production, get a carbon credit, and don't worry about the poverty and disorder that will create.  Expect a lot of whipped up anti-Americanism from these places as an unintended consequence when this becomes the take-it-or-leave it deal to those countries.  People flee places that are falling apart, particularly from centrally planned economies, which includes those involved in green schemes.  Sound like a great foreign policy for the U.S.?

Biden, of course, has a solution to that, too — in the open borders of the U.S.

Maybe that was the plan all along.  

Image: Pixabay, Pixabay License.

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