http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-us-manipulated-climate-accordWikiLeaks cables reveal how US manipulated climate accord
Embassy dispatches show America used spying, threats and promises of aid to get support for Copenhagen accord
guardian.co.uk, Friday 3 December 2010 21.30 GMT
Hidden behind the save-the-world rhetoric of the global climate change negotiations lies the mucky realpolitik: money and threats buy political support; spying and cyberwarfare are used to seek out leverage.
The US diplomatic cables reveal how the US seeks dirt on nations opposed to its approach to tackling global warming; how financial and other aid is used by countries to gain political backing; how distrust, broken promises and creative accounting dog negotiations; and how the US mounted a secret global diplomatic offensive to overwhelm opposition to the controversial "Copenhagen accord", the unofficial document that emerged from the ruins of the Copenhagen climate change summit in 2009.
Negotiating a climate treaty is a high-stakes game, not just because of the danger warming poses to civilisation but also because re-engineering the global economy to a low-carbon model will see the flow of billions of dollars redirected.
Seeking negotiating chips, the US state department sent a secret cable on 31 July 2009 seeking human intelligence from UN diplomats across a range of issues, including climate change. The
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/02/wikileaks-cables-cia-united-nations">request originated with the CIA. As well as countries' negotiating positions for Copenhagen,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/219058">diplomats were asked to provide evidence of UN environmental "treaty circumvention" and deals between nations.
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