LESSONS FROM THE CARBON RIP-OFF IN DENMARK

Witch of the North

CONNIE Hedegaard, the EU Climate Commissioner, appeared on these pages on Monday promoting the outcomes of the Cancun climate summit and offering to work with Australian Climate Change Minister Greg Combet.
Combet, for his part, is committed to putting a price on carbon.
What Hedegaard didn't mention in her piece, but to which Combet and Australia should pay close attention, is that the Danish tax authority has been robbed blind by a carbon trading scandal that has rocked the market for carbon offsets. While the story saw some coverage a year ago, significantly higher losses have since been reported and this has largely been ignored.
The Danish auditor general is on the case now as the scope of the crime has become obvious, and grown exponentially since it was first reported. Originally discussed as a quasi-small-time dollar scam, the reality a year later is a lot larger: Europol is estimating a value on the case of 38 billion kroner and the values seem to keep going up.

Hedegaard, then Denmark's Climate and Energy Minister, helped set up and manage a system where there were no background checks on the listings of permitted traders. This removal of identification was done even though the EU requires at least a passport. This helped a group of fake, rogue traders set up a program that looted the Danish economy of up to 2 per cent of its GDP in lost VAT taxes.
Here's How:
SEE HOW IN "THE AUSTRALIAN"