Six years ago, at the 2009 climate talks in Copenhagen, things seemed to have taken a dire turn, with no solution in sight. Basically, no one really wanted to pledge anything significant. But then, Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, brought forth a proposal: advanced nations would put forth $100 billion by 2020 to support developing countries ensure a sustainable development and limit the effects of climate change as much as possible.The money was to come from “a wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources of finance.” Now, we’re halfway through that time frame, a new climate summit is just around the corner in Paris, and the money still isn’t coming.
“Financing is the most challenging aspect of the whole deal,” Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, told me over the summer. “There is no credible road map to the $100 billion.”
In other words, the money was promised, but without a plan on how it will actually be provided… only the promise remains; and some while some countries are making extraordinary efforts, some (most notably, the US, aren’t).
Show me the money!
Traditionally, the US has been the biggest investor in poor countries and poor areas across the world, but in recent years, their role has diminished more and more. Today, it seems hard to believe that the US would support what it did even 6 years ago. Sure, president Obama pledged $3 billion for the cause, but France promised $5.6 billion in annual climate-related assistance by 2020, up from some $3.4 billion today. China announced that it would give another $3.1 billion, and Prime Minister David Cameron said that the U. K. would give $8.8 billion. To make things even worse, even this pledge met massive resistance in the US Senate, and a big question mark now looms above it.
The US is in many ways lagging behind Europe when it comes to investments in renewable energy and sustainable technology, and it seems less interested than even China to invest in our climate’s future, and this is almost certainly a result of the heavy lobbying and investment by some companies and politicians.
A recent report revealed that Exxon, arguably the world’s most profitable company (with annual profits ranging in the billions and tens of billions of dollars) knew about climate change as early as the 70s, yet they still invest heavily in eliminating environmental laws (as do other major oil companies). The Koch Brothers, with a combined fortune of over $80 billion do the same thing, and it works. If we want to effectively protect our planet’s climate, we need the US to step in and play its art.
While some money has been raised, it’s simply not enough, not least due to massive corporate and public opposition.
Why developing countries should be given the money
This leads us to the next question: why should richer countries give money to developing countries to curb their emissions, when they themselves have many poor people and are trying to deal with their own emissions? There are three main arguments here.
The first two relate to justice. The rich countries got rich by burning fossil fuels; it makes sense then for developing countries to get rich also by burning fossil fuels, but we don’t want that, that’s the whole point. If we want them to develop cleanly, then they have to be supported. Secondly, it’s a matter of the damage being already done. Developing countries (especially coastal areas and areas with extreme weather) are the most affected by existing climate change – which developed countries have done, so it makes sense to pay some sort of retribution for that. But even if those two don’t make a compelling enough argument, then we can look at this in an entirely different way.
We need to help them because they can’t do it themselves – at least not fast or not clean enough. This is a global problem, and you can’t get away from it by closing your borders or simply ignore it. If the developing countries continue to emit more and more greenhouse gases, then we will all pay the price; in other words, it’s not just about helping them, it’s about helping ourselves. We need it.
Hopefully, things will brighten up in Paris.
Tax pollution, particularly fossil carbon, and heavy metals. Stop propping up fossils with 5.3T$ in gov breaks, stop protecting nuclear power from liability and giving it 50 times the gov breaks as solar.
That’s enough to push fossils and nuclear right off the cliff, and for solar, wind and renewable to take their rightful places as the cheapest, cleanest, safest energy source, with infinite distributed free fuel.
Use the taxes and saving to fund feed in tariffs for solar pv, offshore wind, waste to fuels, synthetic fuels, hybrid electric vehicles, and efficiny.
Pollution and heavy metals will only harm the environment but they cannot change the climate or cause any global warming whatsoever . And Co2 gas or carbon is good for life on earth whether it be animal, human, or vegetation,actually life on earth wouldn’t exist at all without carbon. Wars are causing more pollution and destruction to the environment and all kind of life on earth than anyone can ever imaging ,but all they talk about is fossil fuels.
If humans cannot get their warfares’ and every other kind of human violence under control, then how are they going to get the climate under control? by a tax? What a weird idea.
Global warming is not science it’s a religion even the pope is preaching it. There is no such thing as climate scientists only climate psychics and they always keep getting their predictions wrong as all psychics always do.
Recently Japan launched a weather satellite , they said that it is more than 50 times more accurate in getting the weather forecasts right than the technology that has been in use for the last few decades. They compared this new weather satellite technology to the present one by saying that it like comparing black and white TV to high definition colour .They also said that they where not able to predict the weather forecasts correctly from one to the next by using the old technology ,but now they said that this new technology will give the the weather forecasters a 50 times more better chance to be more accurate….{ Note they never said that it was going to give them even 99 more times better chance ,but only 50 times }
So if they can’t predict the weather correctly from one day to the next , then how are they able to predict what the climate is going to be like in the future ,whether that future is One year or 100 years from now?
As I mentioned earlier, wars are the the biggest problem to this planet and not the climate. And it will be by nuclear war that life on earth as we know it will come to an end not by climate change
Fossil fuels provide 85% of all energy consumed in both primary and secondary industries world wide, and will not be going any where anytime soon. Renewables definitely will not replace any fossil fuel as long as they cost more than and are a fraction of the reliability of fossil fuels.
Your article nailed it. The whole global warming scam was predicated on the redistribution of wealth from the industrial countries to the undeveloped countries. That’s why Maurice Strong and his gang focused on trying to tax a harmless, trace, non pollutant, by product of industrial growth like CO2.
Highest CO2 in 15 millions years, 400 times all the volcanoes int he world combined, enough to push ppm over 600, which has measurable negative effect on performance, like sharp shooting. People are willing to give up fresh air, fro fossils fuels. To lives their lives always slightly short of breath, with headaches and fatigue. That’s what even 600 ppm causes. If the outdoor city airs is at say 800 of 1200 then the indoor CO2 cannot be kept much lower than that.
Hey you want to live your life in a submarine, go ahead, but don’t force the rest of us too.
The scam is like the tobacco companies. The fossils companies are scamming us with billions of dollar in influence and pr. Fossils fuels get 5.3T$ in gov breaks. That doesn’t even include the wars.
Global ocean average yearly heat content has gone up with GHG levels since the 60’s. We have many more record highs per year now, and far fewer record lows.
Don’t talk about extant or temperature, those don’t matter. Volume and heat content do.
Solar has doubled about every 2 years, 20% cheaper each time. It’s about 1% of electrical now. 15 years that’s more energy than the world uses.
Charge 250 M electric cars and trucks , Use as backup like the Tesla battery. Get paid to let the grid use 5% of your battery.
That supplies 85% of the primary energy demand
Eliminates virtually all oil, coal. 25% or so of the primary energy demands of today go to Gas and other fossils used for heating, chemical feed stock and long haul travel. 90% of that can be done with electricity. That leaves long haul fuels and chemical feed stocks. Those can be supplied from waste to fuels.
Fossils get 5 Trillion dollars in gov breaks according the the IMF. Nuclear gets proportional numbers. That’s where is went. It should have gone to solar, wind and renewable which are now available for 1/4 the cost of nuclear, and half of most fossils.