Friday 11 December 2009

Fun with numbers

From The BBC:

EU leaders have agreed to pay 7.2bn euros (£6.5bn; $10.6bn) over the next three years to help developing nations adapt to climate change. Announcing the deal, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said all 27 EU member nations would contribute and that the EU was doing its "fair share"...

How many people live in "developing nations"? Let's round it up to 2 billion, shall we, seeing as nations which had hitherto seen themselves as 'developed' might suddenly change their minds. So that's about £1.08 each, per year for three years (€1.20, $1.77). It might just stretch to a couple of litres* of petrol each, I suppose. Or maybe a bundle of firewood?

* Like gallons, but smaller.

10 comments:

Pavlov's Cat said...

That's assuming of course that any of it ever gets to 'the people'
Which on previous form is most unlikely

Ross said...

"Let's round it up to 2 billion"

China and India alone would top that though.

Captain Ranty said...

Some of the countries I visit sell their petrol at 10 cents a litre so that's not a bad deal.....

bayard said...

I wonder if they have actually to demonstrate that they have suffered from global warming, or whether they get the money anyway. I suspect the latter, as I suspect that the whole exercise is an attempt to bribe the developing countries into stopping their development.

Mark Wadsworth said...

PC, good point, I forgot to knock off 'handling charges', see here.

Ross, call it four billion then and halve those £ figures (once you've knocked off EU/UN handling charges).

CR, excellent, then it's enough for a litre of petrol and an old car tyre to burn it in.

B, "I wonder if they have actually to demonstrate that they have suffered from global warming..." Sorry, go to the bottom of the class, you only have to show 'potentially might suffer possibly on the basis of far fetched projections'. So make that five billion people, actually.

Pavlov's Cat said...

@Mark - That I did not know, I am sure it is just resting in their accounts.

I was more talking of when it diappears into the pockets of various dictators /Junta's and their brothers , sisters, cousins, nephews bank accounts
Or used to buy arms to prolong border skimishes, complete cleansing of troublesome opponents

Mark Wadsworth said...

PC, I mentioned this to UKIP's previous treasurer, and she reckoned that the EU had probably passed on more than the UN claim (but less than what the EU had collected) and the UN had done the same thing. So that's half of it gone already. Of the remaining half, most gets nicked by dictators etc (as you or I would assume), yer man in Sub-Saharan Africa might be lucky to see one cent in the dollar.

PS, one of my aunts worked for one of these quangoes in Mali, I'm not making this up, she creamed off about two-thirds of however much it was actually reached that country and remitted it straight back to her bank account in her home country to fund her retirement.

banned said...

'£6.5bn carbon compo' from EU to the third world which George Soros pointed out in todays Telegraph, we would have to borrow from China.

bayard said...

Do I sense a bubble in the making? Is the Carbon Credit Bubble set to go down in history alongside the South Sea Bubble?

Steven_L said...

I sense a bubble, although I think buying investment bank stocks on leverage will be the good long term safer play.

All these little 'green' 'offsetting' and 'carbon management' companies and such like run by Al Gore#s mates and wannabes will probably start floating in a few years and it'll be more like dotcom than South Sea.

Should be fun.