“From Billions to Trillions” — UN Demands Huge “Sustainability” Splurge

With little fanfare and paltry news coverage, United Nations negotiators were working this week at a conference on “sustainable development finance” in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa. They are hoping to put the final touches on a global plan — one with a price tag in the trillions of dollars. The grandiose plan is to be sprung on the world in September at the UN summit on development finance. The UN’s proposed sustainable development goals (SDGs), now being crafted by the UN General Assembly, various UN agencies, national governments,  and private NGOs, are a new 15-year plan intended to replace the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that were introduced 15 years ago at the UN’s 2000 Millennium Summit, ostensibly to combat global poverty. The UN’s SDG plan is also closely intertwined with the UN agenda on global warming, which is scheduled to culminate with the mammoth climate change conference planned for December in Paris.

 

The Ethiopian summit was the latest in a series of recent high-level conferences sponsored by the United Nations. The pace has been fast and furious as the UN’s dedicated poverty fighters have been jetting between luxurious feasts and extravagant soirees at 5-star hotels, Michelin-starred restaurants, and gold-plated conference centers in various global venues. From June 26-July 8, it was the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development under the auspices of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in New York City. Last week it was the Our Common Future Under Climate Change conference in Paris.  This week it was the United Nations Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD3), which ran from July 13-16 in Addis Ababa.

 

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