but `they` do not really want to solve poverty, do they?
re posted from Foreign Policy
“In short, most of the costs associated with present-day climate disasters are due to natural climate variability, not climate change, and are determined by economic development and societal resilience, not the intensity of the climate hazard. For these reasons, the basic formula for adapting to climate change is the same as the formula that has allowed the world to radically reduce the human costs of climate-related disasters over the last century: more wealth, infrastructure, and technology.”
The Obvious Climate Strategy Nobody Will Talk About
Economic development is the only proven path to climate resilience.
Global leaders will convene this week at the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh for another round of haggling over the global response to climate change. While the venues are different, the script remains the same: World leaders will outdo one another with dire warnings of catastrophe, agree that the “climate crisis” demands greater ambition to cut emissions, and reiterate their commitment to nonbinding targets the world is unlikely to meet.
Then, if the past is any guide, the climate conference will founder over the same intractable conflicts as always. Poor countries will demand that rich countries cut emissions first and fastest—and support programs to help the global south adapt to a warming climate. Rich countries will demand that poor countries leapfrog fossil fuels and power their development with wind and solar energy. Poor countries will agree, in principle, to do so if rich countries foot the bill and compensate the nations of the global south for damage from climate change they are not responsible for. Rich countries will commit, in principle, to do so but will fail to deliver the promised support.
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