The World's Most Wanted Killer of 2010: Mother Nature

Jess Leber is Change.org's environment editor and is writing from COP-16 in Cancun this week, where 193 nations are meeting from Nov. 29-Dec. 11 in their yearly attempt to forge a new international treaty to tackle the global warming crisis.

Among the many benefits of being rich is that you can afford to make mistakes. Neglected an impending financial collapse? No problem, simply bailout the banks afterward.

For the U.S. and many other well-off nations, the same applies in the climate debate. We know we are headed headlong into a difficult future, but we are a little less worried than is rational. Why? Because we are comfortable. We know that at the very least we have they money to ride the wave of a collapse (or in climate speak "adapt").

The same cannot be said for poorer nations, or those most-vulnerable to the whims of the global climate system.

Over the summer, you may remember we wrote a lot about the unprecedented string of extreme weather events that affected the globe. From floods in Pakistan and Vietnam to drought in Brazil and China, many of the regions affected are of course the least able to recover from this scale of catastrophe. Russia's severe droughts prompted it to stop exporting grain, prompting a rise in global grain prices that hit poor nations where it hurt. This week, Oxfam International put a number to the horror: 21,000 people died due to weather-related disasters in the first nine months of 2010, more than double the entire death toll in 2009.

All of this is to explain why so much of these climate negotiations this year (and every year) are about money. Developing nations will not agree to reducing their own greenhouse gas emissions without aid from the West. That aid would serve two purposes: a) Give them the needed cushion room, like the West, to "adapt" and prepare for climate-related changes, such as sea-level rise, and more severe weather disasters. b) Help them adopt low-carbon technologies while increasing their overall standard-of-living.

Many humanitarian and justice groups here in Cancun are pushing developed nations to actually cut a check that would provide this type of monetary support. They are actually picking up where last year left off. In the previous round of talks in Copenhagen, a "global climate fund" was established as a way to deliver billions of dollars in aid to poor countries. The structure of the fund, however, was left vague, and the $100 billion proposed to fill its is still nowhere near a reality ($30 billion was pledged last year, but even that money hasn't come yet).

One big way the success of these talks will be measured a week from now is in the progress made in this area. Will the U.S., the E.U., Australia, Japan, Canada, and other developed nations make concrete, expanded financial commitments? Will it be enough?

The success of the other side of the global warming equation—actually emissions reductions—hangs in the balance. Brazil's president, for example, said yesterday that without Western financing for his plan to fight deforestation, there was no deal to be had.

Oxfam says it shouldn't be too hard to raise this money. A sensible tax (gasp!) on shipping or aviation greenhouse gas emissions, or on banking transactions, for example, would do it, they say. They, along with countless other non-profits at the talks, are pushing for this type of equity.

You can go to their web site to join their campaign for the establishment of a fair Global Climate Fund before the meeting is up on December 10th.

Photo credit: Edward Allen L. Lim via Flickr

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