12 references alone in bill requiring conservation of 50% total land area by 2050
By Michael Bielawski
References to the agenda of the United Nations and its affiliated organizations occasionally pop up in discussion and testimony in the legislation, especially when the topic is climate or land development. VDC has decided to enter “United Nations” into the search engines of key House and Senate committees, and see what pops up.
Today’s report is the first in a series. In the House Committee on Environment and Energy, “United Nations” shows up in 18 documents.
12 of those documents pertain to H. 126, which passed into law last June without Gov. Scott’s signature. This law deals with “Conservation and development; land use; land conservation; biodiversity; community resilience.” It states in its findings section that “human activity has altered almost 75 percent of the Earth’s surface, squeezing wildlife and nature into ever-smaller natural areas of the planet.”
House Environment and Energy is the main committee for Act 250 land use planning and climate change policy. In 2011, Vermont was found by a U.N. organization to be the best state for “sustainable development.”
Half of all land off limits?
The law ultimately determines that Vermont needs to “establish State goals of conserving 30% of the land of the State by 2030 and 50% by 2050.” – resonant with the U.N. “50 by 50” initiative.
It also states that “The health of ecosystems on which humans and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever, affecting the very foundations of economies, livelihoods, food security, health, and quality of life worldwide.” Rep. Amy Sheldon, D-Middlebury, and others are the sponsors.
U.N. policy dictating carbon reductions?
In a presentation by the Energy Action Network to the committee concerning S. 5 dealing with “mandated greenhouse gas reductions for the thermal sector through efficiency, weatherization measures, electrification, and decarbonization.” It also references U.N. policy.
“The report, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body of experts convened by the United Nations, offers the most comprehensive understanding to date of ways in which the planet is changing,” it states.
It continues that “global average temperatures are estimated to rise 1.5 degrees Celsius [2.7 degrees Fahrenheit] above pre-industrial levels sometime around ‘the first half of the 2030s,’ as humans continue to burn coal, oil, and natural gas.”
Is Vermont in a “Polycrisis”?
The committee also took testimony in January regarding forest maintenance policies. Jamison Ervin gave this testimony, a Duxbury Selectboard member as well as on the Duxbury Land Trust and Planning Commission. He also has 14 years with the United Nations Development Program among other international groups.
According to his presentation, the world is in a climate crisis, water crisis, food crisis, natural disaster crisis, health crisis, and biodiversity crisis… all of these together account for the “polycrisis” for which public policy must prepare. He argues efforts to mitigate this crisis include that at least 30% of all land must be protected from development.
A “threat to human wellbeing and planetary health”
The committee also heard from William Moomaw who is an Emeritus Professor of International Environmental Policy at the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at the Fletcher School of Law in Maine. A document that accompanied his testimony last month describes a global agenda.
“Nature-based climate solutions are needed to meet anticipated national targets associated with the Paris Climate Agreement which establishes a global framework to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting warming to less than 2°C (United Nations, 2015),” it states.
The document further states that citizens face catastrophes if public policies don’t adapt soon.
“The cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and planetary health. Any further delay in concerted anticipatory global action on adaptation and mitigation will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all. (very high confidence)”
Other committees
The United Nations to a lesser extent seems to have a hand in other Vermont Committees. If one searches “United Nations” on Vermont’s House Transportation Committee website – where they are strongly pushing high-cost EVs – shows up in two documents. They are the “Vermont Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory & Forecast 1990-2017” and the “Manual of Environmental Best Practices for Snow & Ice Control.”
In the House Education Committee, it shows up in the “St. Johnsbury Academy Overview” – a “Model United Nations” is one of the school’s social clubs.
The author is a reporter for the Vermont Daily Chronicle