Kevin Conrad, Papua New Guinea's shadowy international climate change ambassador, in Cancun, Mexico, for the latest round of United Nations Climate Change negotiations, is still pushing the international community to give the PNG government US$1 billion for, well, for not very much really.

Conrad and Somare still pushing for $1 billion for REDD
The latest documents coming out of the climate negotiations (see copies below) show that rather than promising to tackle carbon emissions and bio-diversity loss by stopping illegal and unsustainable logging and reversing leases that allow the clearance of 4.5 million hectares of forest for 'agriculture projects', the Papua New Guinea government is still hoping the international community will release hundreds of millions of dollars just on the promise of future action.

Civil society groups at the climate negotiations are also making sure the international community is aware that the glossy documents being paraded by Kevin Conrad have been developed in a back-room deal with international consultants McKinseys and not through any sort of participatory process by landowners, government departments and civil society in PNG.

The international community is also surely not going to be impressed by Somare's failure to deal with rampant corruption in PNG which is likely to see any international dollars sucked up by rogues and con-men, nor Somare's undermining of Parliamentary democracy which culminated last week in his failure to face up to an opposition sponsored vote of no confidence and his continued attempts to dodge a Leadership Tribunal. These are not the credentials to inspire confidence that any funding will be well used.