---

In August 2022, Dutch economist Barbara Baarsma appeared on BNR Newsradio to explain her plan for the carbon dioxide wallet.  In doing so, Baarsma, who was CEO of Rabo Carbon Bank until February 2023, revealed a lot of their plans regarding the carbon emissions scam.

She highlighted that climate change is a problem but the current climate change plans of the Dutch cabinet will not make a difference. That is why, in her view, there should be a price tag for greenhouse gas emissions. Rabo Carbon Bank had recently released the first “carbon credits” sold to Dutch companies.  Now it seemed she wanted to sell a similar idea to Dutch households.

Baarsma’s plan entailed a carbon dioxide (“CO₂”) emissions budget controlled in a “carbon wallet” for each household.  Where poorer people were unable to use up their carbon emissions allocation or “rights,” richer people could buy these “rights” from the poor.

According to Baarsma, the plan is that those that can afford to do so can buy “emission rights” from another person and the people with a “small wallet” can earn something from the green economy.  In other words, the rich can continue to do whatever they like – live in large houses, fly a lot, eat a lot of meat or drive large cars – while at the same time making themselves feel good about helping the poor.   Not for a moment does Baarsma consider the rights of the poor or that her idea causes and worsens inequality.

The original interview is in Dutch however, a Twitter user has posted an excerpt with English subtitles.

https://twitter.com/BernieSpofforth/status/1682457787719208968

Baarsma’s proposal shows how far the climate elites are alienated from the population.  Her idea of course brought backlash on social media from the Dutch public criticising her idea as “derogatory and demeaning” and creating a “class society,” with some pointing out that it appeared she was validating a “conspiracy theory.”

The CO₂ budget is at odds with inalienable rights and poses a direct threat to democracy and freedom. It will lead to a totalitarian carbon dictatorship that will increasingly control people’s lives and lead to the suspension of democratic rights.

“The personal CO₂ budget is based on the principle that the government artificially creates scarcity of ‘emission rights’,” wrote Wynia’s Week.

The CO₂ budget starts well, so that nobody is bothered by it and the government can implement it without too much resistance. However, the law will empower the executive to progressively [reduce] the budget every year – as much as is necessary to achieve the stated goal, which is the 1.5 degrees from Paris. That goal of 1.5 degrees is not based on any science collective target.

With an increasingly tight budget, citizens will receive less ‘”emission rights” every year and will be able to do less and less activities that generate emissions. Prices of many products will continue to rise and the “market price” of emission rights will become prohibitive for a growing group.

Barbara Baarsma’s personal CO2 budget can lead to war (Dutch to English translation), Wynia’s Week, 6 August 2022

The idea of the CO₂ budget already underpinned the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the predecessor of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. That Protocol provided for a so-called “cap-and-trade” approach implemented by the European Union with the Emissions Trading System (“ETS”). However, this idea was not followed up in the rest of the world and that is why the Paris Climate Agreement was negotiated, which uses a “bottom-up” approach.

While the rest of the world can now freely determine their climate policy themselves, Europe is burdened by both the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Climate Agreement. Countries such as China and India want to do something about climate policy, as long as the West pays. Developing countries have taken the view that the climate problem has been caused by the West and that the West must therefore also solve it by limiting global warming to 1.5 C degrees. And of course, the West also has to pay for all “climate damage” and the necessary adaptation measures worldwide.

Sources for this article include:

• Barbara Baarsma explains CO2 budget again, but Op1 viewers and table guests do not seem reassured (Dutch to English translation). Metro, 3 August 2022
• Barbara Baarsma’s personal CO2 budget can lead to war (Dutch to English translation), Wynia’s Week, 6 August 2022