The Fox And The Hen: UN Climate Panel Receives Blatant Advice As Conflicted Interests Regulate Our Future

Our government often appears as a massive, histrionic caricature of that old adage about the fox guarding the hen house. But let’s put euphemistic metaphors aside for a moment and ask, Why do we so easily let greedy, corporate bastards dictate our legislation?

A group of international scientists, the InterAcademy Council (IAC), recently released an independent review of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). While the 113-page report gave the panel a general thumbs-up pat-on-the-back, it offered some unabashed counsel as well.

The IAC review calls for some major overhauls in the structure of the IPCC, including a full-time executive director, increased transparency and frequent replacements in senior management. IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri claims that he has already set in motion many of the suggestions outlined by the IACC, according to the AP.

Though one recommendation Pachauri clearly isn’t pursuing is that which would directly affect him most: the IAC’s proposal to restrict his position to a single-assessment term.

Under these guidelines, Pachauri would not go on to lead the upcoming 5th assessment as planned, and he diligently attests no intention of shedding his position. “This is a mission and I cannot shirk or walk away from it,” he told the Guardian.

This all may seem like small potatoes next to the most “no shit” piece of advice the report offers when criticizing the IPCC for being devoid of any clear policy involving conflicts of interest among its members, something the panel’s parent agencies all employ. The obvious inclusion of such a motion suggests a veiled jab at Pachauri, who was recently the target of much scrutiny for his external role as a board member and adviser to various energy companies.

Though a recent investigation into his finances exonerated him from any misconduct, the fact that an inquiry into such matters or recommendation of said policy is even necessary just pleads for the blindingly conspicuous to be asked: Why are we letting such comfy relationships between finance-driven corner-cutting corporations and the “independent” bodies tasked with regulating them exist in any form whatsoever, even if seemingly innocent or honest? (I wrote those last words with an implicit and involuntary bitter scorn.)

The subject of such collusion is as old as government itself, and would require more words than all of humanity’s combined attention span can handle to accurately cover.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management — formerly the Minerals Management Service (MMS) — only recently announced conflict-of-interest regulations for those overseeing oil and gas companies, something that anyone with common sense would expect to exist from the beginning. The MMS is well known for its short but scandalous history of sex, drugs and absolute corruption — regulators frequently engaged in illicit behavior with key energy-industry players and cycled through a revolving door of jobs between the dirty companies and the government agencies monitoring them.

The worst part is that when an unprecedented toxic mass of oil floods our planet, or entire peoples are displaced from environmental catastrophes, instead of addressing the root of the problems directly, we have to waste precious time dealing with investigations into the merits and morality of our officials assigned to deal with such enormous responsibilities.

A recent study shows the majority of Americans want the government to regulate greenhouse gases, yet our elected officials fail to enact any effective action to do so, consistently delayed by petty partisan bickering and those aforementioned ubiquitous conflicting interests. Even notorious climate change skeptic Bjorn Lomborg has jumped his sinking ship (perhaps after colliding with a melting glacier?) and now suggests that global warming is not only reliably certain, but requires $100 billion a year to successfully combat.

At the rate our government accomplishes things, we won’t have to worry about the fox devouring the hens, because they’ll all be drowning in the rising seas, scorching in the record heat, and starving in their barren fields. But who cares? Those hens’ eggs all have salmonella, anyway.