Photo credit: america.gov

The 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen, which many have said was our last chance to take action against “the greatest threat the world has ever faced”, ended in a failure.

For over 15 years delegates and politicians from around the world have discussed, debated and negotiated the questions of dealing with manmade climate change in various COP (Conference of the Parties) summits. So why haven’t they made any real progress yet?

That is a big question that covers a whole range of topics and issues that I won’t go into. Instead I will try to focus on the actual politics and tactics used at the COP summits. I will try to see if uneven development and inequality plays any part in how the actual negotiations plays out, how the delegates attending perceive climate justice and fairness, and if all this combined somehow sabotages the efforts to secure a climate deal.

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I belong to a Melbourne-based Climate Action Group called the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group (YVCAG) which is very active in public education through public meetings, participation in public demonstrations and by providing a series of very well-referenced Climate Emergency Fact Sheets on its website. Thus people confused by the vehement and dishonest denial by climate sceptics can use the YVCAG resource and discover what top climate scientists and top scientific bodies think about the accelerating global warming crisis by consulting “Climate Emergency: what top world scientific experts say“.

Our local Climate Action Group is variously linked to scores of like-minded Climate Action Groups around the Continent and Commonwealth of Australia through two umbrella organizations, namely the Climate Emergency Network and the Climate Movement. However our efforts at public education are negated by the Power of Money. Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter with coal exports currently worth A$55 billion per annum; about 92% of Australia’s electric power comes from fossil fuel burning; and the Australian coal industry is worth in total about A$100 billion annually – with the coincident reality that Australia resolutely ignores the disproportionate impact it is having on the Earth’s environment through its world-leading annual per capita Domestic and Exported fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution.

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Al Gore have said, during the annual World Economic Forum Meeting in 2008, that you can’t solve climate change or poverty in the developing world “without dealing with the other”:

“Earlier this year, Bono and I spoke about the intersection between the extreme poverty in the developing world – especially in Africa – and the climate crisis. It is impossible to solve one of these issues without dealing with the other.”

A video from the event can be found below:

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On December 12, 1991, Lawrence Summers, the chief economist for the World Bank, wrote an internal memo that was leaked to the British publication the Economist on February 8, 1992.

DATE: December 12, 1991
TO: Distribution
FR: Lawrence H. Summers
Subject: GEP

‘Dirty’ Industries: Just between you and me, shouldn’t the World Bank be encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Less Developed Countries]? I can think of three reasons:

1) The measurements of the costs of health impairing pollution depends on the foregone earnings from increased morbidity and mortality. From this point of view a given amount of health impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country with the lowest wages. I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.

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During the last few years societies familiarise quickly with environmental issues. The First and the Second World residents get gradually informed about problems such as climate change and the greenhouse effect, that take place due to human activity.

Wealthy people from the upper classes of society have many opportunities to get involved in these problems, to raise their own and other people’s awareness, and to contribute financially. However, this is not the case when it comes to lower ranks. It seems that poverty is a barrier in taking part in solving environmental problems.

For example, it is said that we should prefer bio-eco products for a greener life. Those products can be recycled or/and recyclable, manufactured in environmental friendly ways, without the use of toxic substances or chemicals. But all these features make them very expensive as well. So, the poorer people have to keep buying the cheapest products, and thus promoting the continuous manufacture and use of unhealthy and pollutant products.

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Billions of us have seen the performances of the marvellous athletes at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The top 15 countries in terms of 5 or more Gold medals were the host nation China (#1, 51 Gold medals), the US (#2, 36), Russia (#3, 23), the UK (#4; 19; the next Olympic host nation), Germany (#5, 16), Australia (#6, 14), South Korea (#7, 13), Japan (#8, 9), Italy (#9, 8), France (#10, 7), Ukraine (#11, 7), the Netherlands (#12, 7), Jamaica (#13, 6), Spain (#14, 5) and Kenya (#15, 5).

However we must ask the question: how GREEN were the efforts of the successful Gold Medal-winning countries?

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On October 15th the second Blog Action Day will occur. Last year bloggers united for the environment. This year’s topic will be poverty. The new campaign was launched last Friday but already now over 2000 blogs with an audience of over 3500000 people has registered as participators to this year’s event.

“It’s been almost a year since, with your help, we held the smashingly successful Blog Action Day 2007, and as of a few hours ago, our 2008 campaign has officially begun. This year our theme is “Poverty” and we’ll be encouraging bloggers around the world to once again explore this issue on your blogs on October 15th.”

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