Poverty and climate

Climate Change is also about poverty. If we can not curb the emission in time (and the window to act is open just for about 7 -8 years from now)we will face more poverty around the world due to changed climate. Today bloggers around the world will bring the subject of poverty to their blogs.
From a faith perspective we must always have the most vulnerable of the world in focus. The most vulnerable to climate change are the poor. Just look what happened in New Orleans, a town in the rich world. Those that suffered most were those who did not have the financial resources or insurances.This is the fact all over the world. Poor people will be the first victims when harvests will not be as it used to be, when water resources will not be there, when flooding s will sweep away their hoses.
Climate change is not just another Green Issue! It is a moral obligation to the people of the world to change. If we should make poverty history we also need to make the fossil society history.

Why doesn´t the world respond to the climate challenge as quick as it did to the financial crisis?

The last weeks have been focused on solving the financial crisis of the world. The activities on the stock markets and from governments of the world have been more than high! Iceland seems to have lost more or less half of their bank assets in a week! Now everybody can support the will to save and secure the financial system. Why is the sluggish way of dealing with climate change? The crisis of climate change is as urgent as the financial crisis!
Maybe people think of climate change as a green issue that we can deal with when the financial problems are solved. But the economics of climate change is already sorted out by Sir Nic Stern! And he also underlined the urgency to act.

I quote from the last ECEN (European Christian Environmental Network) working group on climate change

1) The need of political leadership to avoid the tipping points.

Climate change is not only about individual lifestyles. We need global agreements with targets that bring the emission of green house gases down.

We strongly support the action the European Union is taking to tackle climate change and, as a European network, urge the European Union to take brave leadership in the coming process under UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) with the next two COP’s (Conference of the Parties) in Poznan and Copenhagen in focus.

The seriousness of the situation and the message from the scientific community says that big cuts of emission are now necessary.

In reality this means that we would like to see EU/European countries work for;

· a 30 – 40 % cut of emissions for industrial countries to 2020 without use of flexible mechanisms, i.e. buying credits from developing countries

· binding commitments to use a minimum of 30% of the revenues from emissions auctioning to support developing countries to adopt robust adaptation and mitigation programmes.

· 80 -90 % cuts of emissions to 2050

· a fair and effective global climate treaty to be decided at COP 15 in Copenhagen

If the world can act in a week to save the financial systems then it is possible to act to save the climate in a much faster way then what we can see now!

Erosion in Alaska - also a consequence of Climate Change

This video is shot this summer over from late June to late July. It is clear that the erosion is just another effect of the climate change we live in these days!

Greenhouse Development Rights

Today Stockholm Environment Institute presents new figures on their idea of distributing the efforts to cut the emissions of Greenhouse Gases in a more equitable way.
The results is a big challenge to everybody on the earth. Forget the talk of EU 20 % cuts and if a global agreement will come, 30%,to 2020 as a success. The developed countries needs to do MORE than 100%!And that means definitely more than 30 % to 2020!
How can the emissions cut be more then 100%? Because the developed world have to do more than only domestic cuts! So if you thought that you could buy your part of emissions from somewhere else and go on with the same amount of emission, forget it!
Executive Director of SEI Johan Rockström says

"- Taking drastic action is not a choice; it is a necessity. The planet will not remain within safe thresholds without emission cuts of more than 100% in developed countries. These cuts should address domestic and international emissions, as well as the emissions from our consumption of products produced abroad."

Now if someone thought of this as bad news I am not sure that is right. This is a way of locking up the negotiations of UNFCCC. Every country have a responsibility to cut emissions but as it has been said for sometimes, shared but differentiated.

China, India, Brazil, South Africa, etc, everyone will have to do their homework, but the largest part will be done by the industrialized countries like the US and EU.

Sivan Kartha, the author behind the GDR:s says “- The bottom line is that the current climate negotiations will not succeed until they address the fundamental challenge of human development for the poorest people on the planet”

Now, this is the real challenge of climate change!