Hillary's a huckster, you're right:
> *Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
> At the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
> *... And today I’d like to announce that, in the context of a strong
> accord in which all major economies stand behind meaningful mitigation
> actions and provide full transparency as to their implementation, the
> United States is prepared to work with other countries toward a goal
> of jointly mobilizing $100 billion a year by 2020 to address the
> climate change needs of developing countries. We expect this funding
> will come from a wide variety of sources, public and private,
> bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources of finance.
> This will include a significant focus on forestry and adaptation,
> particularly, again I repeat, for the poorest and most vulnerable
> among us.
If the carbon markets are generally estimated to grow to $3 trillion by 2020, then to reach the $100 billion that she promises will be raised "from a wide variety of sources, public and private", only 3.33% of that market is needed in the form of Clean Development Mechanism funding (which goes mainly to venal corporations in the Third World, from 'private' sources in the North which want to avoid or delay decarbonisation). In 2008, with carbon trading at $120 billion and CDMs valued at about $6.5 billion, we were already way above that ratio. So... business as usual, or worse.
It does mean that the climate financing debate should now explicitly tackle carbon trading. Here's a nine-minute video - http://www.storyofcapandtrade - and my reply to some pro-trading critics: http://www.counterpunch.org/bond12172009.html