About Those “Developing” Countries

The climate change debate, seen for all its weaknesses recently in Copenhagen, is about the “haves” and the “have-nots” and it is about who is supposed to be responsible for whom in the years ahead. We know the talks failed and no meaningful agreement was reached, but less obvious are the underlying reasons why: greed and double standards. To believe American media coverage, one might think Barack Obama saved the day by striking an accord that enabled everyone to leave Copenhagen able to say there had been “progress” on which to build. What is less emphasized is that only 5 out of 192 countries actually concurred.

China is accused of “wrecking” the talks by Europeans even as China itself suggests it helped “mark a new starting point” in the “global fight against climate change.” African nations are outraged, and the whole of the “developing countries” list believes they should be entitled to advantages they want “developed countries” to be stripped of (to which China agrees, of course). The argument now centers around how much the developed countries can reduce their own emissions (and how many hundreds of billions of dollars they can hand over) to allow for the developing countries to emit MORE with an outstretched hand. The goal of saving the planet is lost here.

Developing countries insist they need to emit more in order to catch up with developed nations, and they insist everyone else pay for it. This logic flies in the face of the larger concern that ANY emissions are bad emissions and that the planet is being killed by mankind. Even as the NYT suggests we each “go it alone” in reducing our emissions, those countries less fortunate than us continue to insist that everyone else take responsibility for them. Trusting governments that can’t even feed and clothe their people with the money we DO give them seems an unwise investment, especially when they insist we not be allowed to verify the money is being used for its intended purpose.