In a Reversal, the U.S. Won’t Block Climate Payments for Poor Nations
Climate is the biggest problem on planet earth, but it’s not the only problem. Humanity will only address this problem in a balanced and inclusive way when we address the root causes: poverty, hunger, and social exclusion, and when we support efforts to bring energy-efficient, low-carbon technologies to poor countries.
A U.N. report released last December concluded that climate is the biggest problem on the planet, but it’s not the only problem.
In other words, by recognizing climate as the most pressing environmental challenge, we must recognize the need to tackle other, more pressing environmental and social problems, including those that disproportionately affect the world’s poor.
Unfortunately, many in the United States and other industrialized nations don’t have a clear vision about how a future with low-carbon energy will be shaped for everyone and what kinds of support it will require, or don’t take the kind of action needed to secure the future they desire.
The United States and its wealthy allies may be in the unique position to influence the framing and implementation of policies about climate in poorer countries, but the U.S. will remain an unwilling participant in international efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“The problem that is often referred to as the second problem – poverty – is one that’s very hard to address through unilateral policies,” said Paul Driessen, senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation and former director of national intelligence for the U.S. Department of Defense. “At the end of the day, poor people often are worse off when we fail to invest in them, so there’s a kind of logic to addressing their poverty and their environment at the same time.”
“We need a more holistic, comprehensive strategy that can include the empowerment, development, security, and equity dimensions of U.S. foreign policy. We need to make climate a new tool in a foreign policy tool box that also includes trade, development, security and energy,” Driessen said.
Driessen and others view the failure to tackle climate in a new way that also addresses another international challenge: energy access, which is also an environmental and social issue that disproportionately affects poor nations.
The United States may only be a small part of the problem on greenhouse
