{"id":285490,"date":"2025-01-20T12:00:47","date_gmt":"2025-01-20T12:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=285490"},"modified":"2025-01-19T09:02:29","modified_gmt":"2025-01-19T09:02:29","slug":"trillions-in-dirty-money-how-hidden-loopholes-fuel-corruption-and-inequality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/01\/trillions-in-dirty-money-how-hidden-loopholes-fuel-corruption-and-inequality\/","title":{"rendered":"Trillions in Dirty Money: How Hidden Loopholes Fuel Corruption and Inequality"},"content":{"rendered":"

16 Jan 2025 <\/em>– It is no longer a secret that at major global summits there are more lobbyists than official delegates. There, they participate as \u2018guests,\u2019 and most of them work for big business corporations. Their goal? To deter the adoption of policies that conflict with their employers\u2019 interests.<\/p>\n

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Transparency International revealed alarming findings in December 2024 about the siphoning of public funds in Africa. Credit: Shutterstock<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Their persuasion exercise quite often helps water down the urgency of taking decisive actions, the need to cut the private business staggering profits, the financial dues of the industrialised powers to the impoverished nations that bear the heaviest brunt of their policies, and so on.<\/p>\n

To achieve such a purpose, lobbyists often quietly show different sorts of \u2018gratitude.\u2019<\/p>\n

The Big Financial Gap in Climate Action<\/strong><\/p>\n

A clear evidence is what the global movement working in over 100 countries to end the injustice of corruption: Transparency International<\/a> (TI<\/a>) informs on the occasion of the International Anti-Corruption Day 2024: Time to tackle the murky world of climate negotiations<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery year billions of dollars are mobilised to finance initiatives that curb emissions, fund climate adaptation, and protect crucial conservation areas\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026 But without strong anti-corruption measures in place, these essential resources are at risk of being diverted, and the current finance gap is at risk of never being closed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can already see evidence of this taking place.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the carbon credits market, it explains<\/a>, where the inherent tension between reducing emissions and providing financial returns has led to land grabbing, bribery, projects being double-counted and the prices of carbon credits being kept secret.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year we saw that in total over 90 percent of carbon credits should not have been approved<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Estimates of total global anonymous and potentially illicit wealth range from US$7 trillion to US$32 trillion (around 10% of total global wealth).<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cRich countries view the Global South as ultimately expendable, like pawns on a chessboard\u2026\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Such an amount is more than 100-fold the 300 billion US dollars promised by the world\u2019s major climate carnage promoters in the concept of \u201creparation\u201d to the most impacted poor countries.<\/p>\n

Responding to the COP29<\/span> climate finance agreement in Baku\u2019s climate summit in November 2024<\/a>, in which rich countries agree to mobilise $300 billion a year to help Global South countries cope with warming temperatures and switch to renewable energy, Oxfam International<\/a>\u2019s Climate Change Policy Lead, Nafkote Dabi<\/span>, said<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe terrible verdict from the Baku climate talks shows that rich countries view the Global South as ultimately expendable, like pawns on a chessboard\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026 The $300 billion so-called \u2018deal\u2019 that poorer countries have been bullied into accepting is unserious and dangerous \u2014a soulless triumph for the rich, but a genuine disaster for our planet and communities who are being flooded, starved, and displaced today by climate breakdown. And as for promises of future funding? They\u2019re just as hollow as the deal itself.<\/p>\n

\u2026 The money on the table is not only a pittance in comparison to what\u2019s really needed \u2013it\u2019s not even real \u201cmoney\u201d, by and large<\/em>, added Nafkote Dabi<\/span>.<\/p>\n

\u201cRather, it\u2019s a motley mix of loans and privatized investment <\/em>\u2013a global Ponzi scheme that the private equity vultures and public relations people will now exploit.<\/p>\n

Africa\u2019s Stolen Wealth<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cImagine billions of dollars siphoned from public funds \u2013 money meant to build schools, hospitals and infrastructure \u2013 vanishing into a web of offshore accounts, luxury real estate and shell companies\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t fiction; it\u2019s the stark reality of how corruption drains resources from Africa and other regions<\/em>, leaving people to bear the cost,\u201d Transparency International<\/a> unveiled in December 2024.<\/p>\n

TI analysis is based on cases of corruption confirmed by court decisions, as well as credible allegations of corruption and hiding of wealth offshore.<\/p>\n

The following are just some of the findings that Transparency International<\/a> has just uncovered:<\/p>\n