Global warming: The Oxburgh Incident and the Italian Job
April 24, 1:21 AMEnvironmental Policy Examiner
by Thomas Fuller
The world of renewable energy, as with so many new initiatives in the past, is currently characterized by a lot of government money being eagerly sought by many sources--some of them not very clean.
When the University of East Anglia decided to investigate itself, they could have chosen from a wide variety of scientific or legal figures. They decided on Lord Oxburgh, despite questions about his independence. As chairman of a windfarm manufacturer, could he really impartially decide on fundamental questions of the probity of climate science?
Would Lord Oxburgh have been appointed to his position as head of the panel investigating Climategate if it had been known that his employer was a subsidiary controlled by an Italian company enmeshed in scandals involving Sicilian waste? Let me hasten to add that I am not making any accusations of either Lord Oxburgh or Falck Renewables, the company he chairs. But was he really the best choice for this inquiry?
Lord Oxburgh is chairman of Falck Renewables, a builder of windfarms with six projects in operation or under construction in the UK alone. Falck Renewables is a subsidiary of Falck Group, a Milan based company that has built windfarms in Calabria and Sicily that have been part of an anti-Mafia investigation. Some of the windfarms, including one near Corleone, were completed quite some time ago, but haven't been connected to the grid. However, generous EU subsidies were forthcoming nonetheless. One project in Minervino Murge was the subject of an anti Mafia investigation (link in Italian, but Google will translate) that led to several arrests.
Italian and EU subsidies for the building of wind farms and the world’s highest guaranteed rates, €180 ($240, £160) per kwh, for the electricity they produce have turned southern Italy into a highly attractive market exploited by organised crime.
As a 2009 story by the Financial Times put it, "Multinationals are starting to find out something that is well known to Italian investors: that concealed beneath Europe’s most generous system of incentives – supported by “green credits” that industrial polluters have to purchase – there exists a web of corruption and shady deals.
Rossana Interlandi, recently appointed head of Sicily’s environment department, explains that project developers – she calls them “speculators” – were also lured by the appeal of a law that obliges Italy’s national grid operator to pay wind farm ownerseven when they are not producing electricity."
The number of Italian cities with a windfarm nearby has doubled within a year, thanks to EU subsidies. It would be astonishing if the Mafia hadn't gotten involved. And nobody from Falck has been arrested, although Achille Colombo, its former head, has resigned, and news reports of questionable dealings with a Sicilian incinerator project that was cancelled have arisen. The deal, which was cancelled and is still under investigation, was worth an estimated € 4 billion.
The situation has deteriorated in Italy to the point that they are moving to residential solar to cut CO2 emissions, in large part to minimize Mafia involvement.
Wind energy has become big business and it's growing in a hurry. Lots of shady people are getting involved, in no small part because of government subsidies for both construction and feed in tariffs for green electricity.
Falck Group was in financial difficulties due to the cancellation of the big incinerator deal. Falck Renewables in the UK was developing wind deals in southern Italy that were generating important cash flow.
Just about the last thing they needed was news that wind energy wasn't crucial to the planet's survival. Just about the last thing they needed was news that the research unit that told the world that current warming was unprecedented in the past 1,000 years was probably wrong. The recession had hammered stock prices in green technology. The failure of COP15 in Copenhagen, the collapse of carbon pricing and various scandals about trading permits had not helped.
A quick investigation focussing on internal interviews and a review of papers selected (it seems) by a committee on which one of the targets of the investigation served, and pointedly did not review any of the papers that had been criticized by skeptics, left the CRU smelling like a 'slightly disorganized but committed' rose.
The reaction of major media sources and governments to the Oxburgh results show that his findings were more than welcome--they may well have been necessary to continue the momentum for widespread conversion to green energy.
I'll repeat here that I have no evidence linking Oxburgh or his company to the mafia--even honest companies in Italy can't get far away from the mafia and can be surprised when they are linked in an investigation. I have interviewed none of the principals in this story, which would be the first course of action for an investigative reporter, which I am not. I am an opinion commentator who happens to read Italian, having lived there for seven years.
But the pressure Lord Oxburgh's company was under due to general financial conditions and being enmeshed in legal difficulties in Italy make it inevitable that someone would raise the question of whether he could have been impartial.
More importantly, the flood of new government money, new deals and new partnerships for projects in faraway countries makes due diligence difficult, if not impossible. This is a Wild West frenzy of renewable building and carbon trading, and there have been scandals for years--and there will be more. What was the thinking behind choosing someone (even one so respected as Oxburgh) to sit in judgment on issues that affected his company's health--even survival? I'll repeat I'm not questioning Oxburgh's integrity--but could anyone from the renewable sector have escaped some kind of association of this sort?
In 2009 alone, 19 were arrested in Spain in connection with corruption surrounding a wind farm, there was a scandal regarding recycled carbon trading permits in Hungary, a regulator in Maine accepted an ownership interest in a company he regulated and which he went on to lead, a Washington biologist is accused of steering wind farm funding to his non-profit, Canada is investigating lobbying violations by green lobbyists, the list literally goes on and on.
Could they not have found somebody else?
http://www.examiner.com/x-9111-Environme....he- Italian-Job
April 24, 1:21 AMEnvironmental Policy Examiner
by Thomas Fuller
The world of renewable energy, as with so many new initiatives in the past, is currently characterized by a lot of government money being eagerly sought by many sources--some of them not very clean.
When the University of East Anglia decided to investigate itself, they could have chosen from a wide variety of scientific or legal figures. They decided on Lord Oxburgh, despite questions about his independence. As chairman of a windfarm manufacturer, could he really impartially decide on fundamental questions of the probity of climate science?
Would Lord Oxburgh have been appointed to his position as head of the panel investigating Climategate if it had been known that his employer was a subsidiary controlled by an Italian company enmeshed in scandals involving Sicilian waste? Let me hasten to add that I am not making any accusations of either Lord Oxburgh or Falck Renewables, the company he chairs. But was he really the best choice for this inquiry?
Lord Oxburgh is chairman of Falck Renewables, a builder of windfarms with six projects in operation or under construction in the UK alone. Falck Renewables is a subsidiary of Falck Group, a Milan based company that has built windfarms in Calabria and Sicily that have been part of an anti-Mafia investigation. Some of the windfarms, including one near Corleone, were completed quite some time ago, but haven't been connected to the grid. However, generous EU subsidies were forthcoming nonetheless. One project in Minervino Murge was the subject of an anti Mafia investigation (link in Italian, but Google will translate) that led to several arrests.
Italian and EU subsidies for the building of wind farms and the world’s highest guaranteed rates, €180 ($240, £160) per kwh, for the electricity they produce have turned southern Italy into a highly attractive market exploited by organised crime.
As a 2009 story by the Financial Times put it, "Multinationals are starting to find out something that is well known to Italian investors: that concealed beneath Europe’s most generous system of incentives – supported by “green credits” that industrial polluters have to purchase – there exists a web of corruption and shady deals.
Rossana Interlandi, recently appointed head of Sicily’s environment department, explains that project developers – she calls them “speculators” – were also lured by the appeal of a law that obliges Italy’s national grid operator to pay wind farm ownerseven when they are not producing electricity."
The number of Italian cities with a windfarm nearby has doubled within a year, thanks to EU subsidies. It would be astonishing if the Mafia hadn't gotten involved. And nobody from Falck has been arrested, although Achille Colombo, its former head, has resigned, and news reports of questionable dealings with a Sicilian incinerator project that was cancelled have arisen. The deal, which was cancelled and is still under investigation, was worth an estimated € 4 billion.
The situation has deteriorated in Italy to the point that they are moving to residential solar to cut CO2 emissions, in large part to minimize Mafia involvement.
Wind energy has become big business and it's growing in a hurry. Lots of shady people are getting involved, in no small part because of government subsidies for both construction and feed in tariffs for green electricity.
Falck Group was in financial difficulties due to the cancellation of the big incinerator deal. Falck Renewables in the UK was developing wind deals in southern Italy that were generating important cash flow.
Just about the last thing they needed was news that wind energy wasn't crucial to the planet's survival. Just about the last thing they needed was news that the research unit that told the world that current warming was unprecedented in the past 1,000 years was probably wrong. The recession had hammered stock prices in green technology. The failure of COP15 in Copenhagen, the collapse of carbon pricing and various scandals about trading permits had not helped.
A quick investigation focussing on internal interviews and a review of papers selected (it seems) by a committee on which one of the targets of the investigation served, and pointedly did not review any of the papers that had been criticized by skeptics, left the CRU smelling like a 'slightly disorganized but committed' rose.
The reaction of major media sources and governments to the Oxburgh results show that his findings were more than welcome--they may well have been necessary to continue the momentum for widespread conversion to green energy.
I'll repeat here that I have no evidence linking Oxburgh or his company to the mafia--even honest companies in Italy can't get far away from the mafia and can be surprised when they are linked in an investigation. I have interviewed none of the principals in this story, which would be the first course of action for an investigative reporter, which I am not. I am an opinion commentator who happens to read Italian, having lived there for seven years.
But the pressure Lord Oxburgh's company was under due to general financial conditions and being enmeshed in legal difficulties in Italy make it inevitable that someone would raise the question of whether he could have been impartial.
More importantly, the flood of new government money, new deals and new partnerships for projects in faraway countries makes due diligence difficult, if not impossible. This is a Wild West frenzy of renewable building and carbon trading, and there have been scandals for years--and there will be more. What was the thinking behind choosing someone (even one so respected as Oxburgh) to sit in judgment on issues that affected his company's health--even survival? I'll repeat I'm not questioning Oxburgh's integrity--but could anyone from the renewable sector have escaped some kind of association of this sort?
In 2009 alone, 19 were arrested in Spain in connection with corruption surrounding a wind farm, there was a scandal regarding recycled carbon trading permits in Hungary, a regulator in Maine accepted an ownership interest in a company he regulated and which he went on to lead, a Washington biologist is accused of steering wind farm funding to his non-profit, Canada is investigating lobbying violations by green lobbyists, the list literally goes on and on.
Could they not have found somebody else?
http://www.examiner.com/x-9111-Environme....he- Italian-Job
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