Climate Deal Must Protect Poorest

by Leigh Graham · 2009-12-07 09:00:00 UTC
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There's a tremendous amount of activism mobilized worldwide as global leaders begin gathering today in Copenhagen for the UN Climate Change Conference, aka, COP15. The TckTckTck Campaign outlines why anti-poverty activists should embrace climate change as a key issue for social justice and poverty alleviation. Even small annual temperature increases lead to rising sea levels, "extreme weather events", and the "degradation" of the earth's natural resources.

These impacts will be felt strongest by the most vulnerable—developing nations in Africa, Asia and the Pacific [and those living in cities like New Orleans and New York - LG] that are least able to protect themselves from rising sea levels, disease, and crop failures.

Unless checked, this human-caused warming may trigger the irreversible melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which could raise sea levels by up to seven meters over the course of centuries. This alone would in turn force millions of people from their homes, disrupt global security, and destabilize the world economy.

More than 10M citizens worldwide have signed TckTckTck's petition for global leaders to sign a fair, just and aggressive climate change agreement. Don't forget that when we speak of the harm to the world's poorest in these debates, we're not excluding our own poor here at home. We have millions of permanently dislocated low-income Americans who could benefit substantially from green jobs and whose neighborhoods would be safer and healthier with retrofitted buildings and cleaner, more accessible open spaces free of toxic facilities. We already have an internally displaced population from Hurricane Katrina living in limbo in the US South. Domestic anti-poverty activists not only need to support global climate change action, but also to bring the case home and fight for healthier, more stable, more securer living conditions for our nation's poorest.

Sign the Climate Change petition to President Obama today.

(Photo of post-Katrina tent living in a NOLA supermarket parking lot by oboreruhito)

Leigh Graham
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