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Pricking The Conscience Of The Rich

By Mihiri Weerasinghe

24 November, 2009
Countercurrents.org

On the 17 of October, Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed along with his cabinet ministers convened their first underwater cabinet meeting to highlight the threat that rising sea levels, caused by global warming, posed to the low-lying island state. Soon after resuming office, Nasheed claimed that he would explore the option of buying land in India, Sri Lanka or Australia to settle the Maldivian population of approximately 300,000. While that option didn’t materialize, Nasheed has become a strong advocate for the need to urgently address climate change for the survival of vulnerable countries.

At the Climate Vulnerable Forum held a few days ago, spearheaded by the Maldives, Nasheed called for vulnerable countries to form a carbon neutral bloc ahead of the UN’s landmark climate conference in Copenhagen. The Maldives has drawn a carbon neutral blueprint for the country and is happy to share this with other interested countries. The group of eleven countries that attended the Forum adopted a declaration emphasizing the need for an ambitious financial package and technical help from the industrialized countries. “If vulnerable, developing countries make a commitment to carbon neutrality, those opposed to change have nowhere left to hide. If those with the least, start doing the most, what excuse can the rich have for continuing inaction?” asks Nasheed. He argues that “moral leadership” by the vulnerable eleven, is the shoehorn to shift industrialized countries at Copenhagen.

There is wide consensus that developing, poorer countries will be the hardest hit by climate change because they have a low capacity to adapt. The Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Small Island Developing States and African countries, which together make up approximately 100 countries, will be the most vulnerable.

At the Bali Conference in 2007 countries acknowledged the need for international cooperation to support developing countries. The Bali Action Plan (BAP) called for a series of actions including technology transfers, and financial assistance. However progress in negotiations have been painfully slow. At the Bangkok Climate Change Talks in September-October 2009, Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, called for higher emission cuts from industrialized countries and for financial support to help developing countries. He stressed the urgency of bridging the disconnect, adding that now is the time to step back from self interest and let common interest prevail.

Depressingly, actions and policies adopted by industrialized countries have included cutting emissions by only a few per cent, outsourcing most of the cuts to developing countries, waiting for carbon capture and storage technology to save the coal industry and continuing to pollute at high levels until that happens. This obviously doesn’t inspire confidence in vulnerable countries. Myopic leaders of rich countries who have a twisted notion of acting in their national interest could cause the deaths of millions in poorer countries.

The Australian Government may have heaved a sigh of relief that it didn’t have to deal with the dilemma of Maldivian “climate refugees” buying land, however it has a moral obligation to be a part of the solution at Copenhagen. Australia has the highest annual emissions per capita of any industrialized country, at almost 27 tones per person. Unfortunately, national politics surrounding the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS), which is due to be heard in Parliament later this month, has taken on a circus air with the Opposition demanding steep concessions to a scheme that is already deemed weak by experts. Keen observers point that the Government has a vested interest to pass the CPRS before Copenhagen to minimize the leeway for international negotiations.

Nasheed calls the pre-Copenhagen discussions, “the logic of the madhouse, a recipe for collective suicide”. He argues that vulnerable countries should not sign a “global suicide pact” in Copenhagen. It is evident that vulnerable, developing countries will have to make a strong stand for their rights in Copenhagen. They will have to be the spoke in the wheel to prevent an accelerated downward spiral in negotiations.

It is ironic and troubling that the harshest sentence of climate change is handed to countries with the least emissions, who are unable to cope with and adapt to the wrath of nature. But it is far more troubling that the people and governments of industrialized countries are willing and complicit participants of the unfolding chaos.

“We need to prick the conscience of the world,” said President Tong of Kiribati echoing Nasheed’s sentiments, at the Climate Vulnerable Forum. Unfortunately, the chance of this strategy working is rather dim with the consciences of many industrialized countries well immune to the pinpricks.

 


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