Frank Joshua

This article is part of the Climate project of Spinwatch.

Frank Joshua.

Frank Joshua is a carbon trading advocate who has both shaped and profited from this mechanism of the Kyoto protocol. He is Chief Executive Officer of the Climate Investment Partnership (CIP).

According to Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation's Larry Lohmann, in his book "Carbon Trading: A Critical Conversion on Climate Change, Privatisation and Power";

Frank Joshua, who served as the UN Head of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading and led several expert groups including the UNCTAD Earth Council Emissions Trading Policy Forum and the UNCTAD Expert Group on the Clean Development Mechanism, went on to be the first executive director of the International Emissions Trading Association, Global Director of Greenhouse Gas Emission Trading Services at Arthur Andersen, and managing director of US-based carbon trader Natsource – all of which are cashing in on the accounting rules Joshua himself helped to enshrine in the UN.

According to the European Investment Bank website in 2003:

Mr Joshua was a Managing Director at Natsource Tullet (Europe) Limited in London (January 2002-June 2003), and Global Director for Emissions Trading Services at Arthur Andersen in London (April 2000 – December 2001). From 1991 to 2000, he was Head of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva.

Mr Joshua’s UN career, which began in 1981, covered primarily the fields of finance and climate change. From 1986 to 1993, Frank Joshua was a member of UNCTAD’s Paris Club team of advisors assisting indebted developing countries to renegotiate their official debt. From 1993 to 1998, he was head of UNCTAD’s program on Private Financing of Infrastructure Projects; and from 1991 to 2000, he headed UNCTAD’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Program.

Among his achievements in climate change are: establishment of the UNCTAD-Earth Council Emissions Trading Policy Forum; and the UNCTAD International Expert Group on the Clean Development Mechanism; creation of the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA); the Emissions Market Development Group (EMDG); the Vienna Carbon Finance Group, and the Climate Investment Partnership (CIP). Frank Joshua is the author or editor of several publications and papers on emissions trading.

Arthur Andersen, former employer, indicted

Accounting firm Arthur Andersen, Joshua's previous employers, were indicted and broken up in 2002, during his spell as Global Director for Emissions Trading Services, when it was discovered that executives in the firm had sanctioned the destruction of large volumes of relevant paperwork and electronic data relating to their long term client Enron who were facing litigation at the time.

Joshua's other baby, the high profile Climate Investment Partnership have blocked their website from internet archives and are virtually untraceable despite some clues that they may still be active.

Carbon market involvement

In an article reporting on a 2009 lecture by Frank Joshua, he is described detailing his involvement in the creation of carbon trading and its insertion into the 1997 Kyoto Protocol as a US-led initiative. The article reveals the means by which Emissions Trading was sneaked into the protocol despite considerable opposition:

Mr. Joshua's most intriguing insight was that emissions trading had at one point been deleted from the draft Kyoto Protocol, only to be reinserted in a different format; as a result, some of the delegations opposed to the ET were caught unawares and agreed to the article.

In another article Joshua demonstrates his faith in carbon offsetting under the much-critiqued Clean Development Mechanism as he claims there is no issue with 'additionality' – the rule that offset projects must prove that they would not have occurred anyway and required the funding provided by other companies, who in turn are allocated 'carbon credits' to pollute more than their 'share'. Despite mainstream critiques around the teething problems with ensuring additionality, which have been largely accepted by carbon trading companies concerned the article claims:

He [Joshua] is appalled by the idea that investors should receive credits under the CDM only once they have invested considerable time and funds in showing that it would otherwise be commercially unviable.

"I can't see any investor anywhere on this planet doing this," he says.

He believes that the EU and many environmental groups are overly concerned that the CDM will create loopholes that will be exploited by countries and companies trying to evade real cuts in emissions.

The real danger, he says, is that the rule makers will prevent the widespread adoption of the CDM by creating excessive costs and other obstacles."I don't think it is going to be worth billions.I think the barriers are far too high," he says.

Connections

Joshua has worked alongside John Buttle in the International Emissions Trading Association and Arthur Andersen. The two also appear to have co-founded the Climate Investment Partnership in 2003.