climate equity

Bear poops in woods, some observers say

Check out the "story highlights" on top of this CNN piece: • World’s poor are disproportionately affected by climate change, analysts say • Low-income groups have comparatively little influence on public policy • Burden of climate change rests with wealthy individuals, some observers say Interesting that "some observers" are the only support for that third […]

David Roberts Climate & Energy

Drawing actual conclusions about the international challenge

Here's something novel: a well-informed and honest article from a significant British magazine (Prospect) that looks hard at the core political challenges of global climate stabilization and then draws some conclusions. And it's written by Simon Retallack, who knows his way around both the climate policy debate and the climate movement.

Tom Athanasiou Climate & Energy

Climate change is as much a social priority as an environmental concern

Climate change is a universal menace, threatening hardships for everyone. But it's not an egalitarian menace: everyone will not suffer equally. Perversely, those people and nations least to blame for causing it are most vulnerable to its impacts.

Climate disruption heaps misfortune on the less fortunate, whether in low-lying Bangladesh, the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, or the flood plains around Chehalis, Wash. In the aftermath of climate change, the less you have, the more you're likely to lose.

Alan Durning Climate & Energy

Climate refugees and Wi-Fi pollution

The Ecologist is such a great magazine. But I'm sorry that they don't make any of their content freely available online for me to link to here, because the Dec/Jan issue has some really important reading. For one, the world's first (human) climate refugees are about to lose their islands (in the Sunderbans Delta, which straddles the border of India and Bangladesh and is the world's largest mangrove forest, due to increased flows of water from melting glaciers in the Ganges headwaters).

There's also a meaty discussion about the possible negative health effects of Wi-Fi. Whether or not Wi-Fi microwaves actually cause headaches, sleep disturbance, depression, memory loss, and worse, as some studies claim, it is pretty remarkable -- according to a physicist interviewed for the piece -- that this technology could come to market and become ubiquitous without having to undergo safety trials or scrutiny.

Erik Hoffner Climate & Energy

U.N. creating small Adaptation Fund by going carbon neutral

The following essay is a guest post by Kari Manlove, fellows assistant at the Center for American Progress.

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The IPCC has warned us that developing nations are poised to bear the most dramatic effects of global warming, and so far we (the world) have done practically nothing to counter or prevent that fact. But the U.N. is trying.

flood This week in Bali, the U.N. announced that it will go carbon neutral by offsetting the operations of over 20 agencies, including the office of Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. With the money collected, the U.N. will invest in an Adaptation Fund to help developing countries combat the consequences of climate change in coming decades. At its start, the fund will be worth no more than $50 million, but advocates hope that number will grow as we see increasing need for a fund of its type.

Joseph Romm Climate & Energy

China and the U.S. are both obliged to act on climate change, quick-like

Apparently, based on some recent threads on this site, there’s some dispute about the role China plays in the Great International Climate Change Debate. I’m absolutely snowed under right now, but I want to make two quick points: It is indisputable that the U.S., and developed countries generally, bear a vastly larger share of the […]

David Roberts Politics

What happens to a woman without a country?

By Amanda McKenzie, national coordinator of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition.

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Along with 10 other young Australians, I traveled to Bali to bring the voice of Australia's youth to the U.N. Climate Change Conference. We have been reminding world leaders that our future is threatened. However, my personal concerns about my future were eclipsed when a young woman named Claire from the small island nation of Kiribati stood up in front of 200 international youth and told her story. For Claire, climate change is more than a future concern. It is right here, right now.

Youth from all over the world, including Australia, had come together to share their stories and successes in raising awareness and taking action on climate change in their home countries. Every participant was humbled by Claire, who offered her heartfelt thanks to all of us for our efforts. Her home, only two meters above sea level, is rapidly being inundated by the rising ocean. Two islands that make up Kiribati have already been submerged. Claire's island, home, culture, and future are all under imminent threat from climate change. It is likely that her entire nation will have to be evacuated in the near future. Where do you go when your country simply vanishes?

Claire's voice, and the voices of the Pacific, are largely absent from the U.N. Climate Change Conference. These nations are small in terms of their size, population, wealth, and greenhouse-gas emissions. That's the irony: those who have contributed the least -- and benefited the least from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels -- will suffer first. Kiribati will be underwater before the bulk of the Australian population realizes that climate change is the most serious issue on the planet.

Youth Movement Climate & Energy

Simple answers

Noel Sheppard: Capitalist democracies around the world should be very concerned about the level of socialism being discussed at the United Nations’ climate change meeting in Bali. Not only are international hands being extended to collect funds from countries like the United States in order to help poorer nations deal with a problem that might […]