Global Warming & Poverty
The Deadly Inseperables

The frightening parallel between global warming and poverty highlights the urgent need for both developed and developing nations to collaborate.
Throughout history, adventurers, generals, merchants, and financiers have constructed an ever-more-global economy. Today, unprecedented changes in communications, transportation, and computer technology have given the process new impetus. As globally mobile capital reorganizes business firms, it sweeps away regulation and undermines local and national politics. Globalization creates new markets and wealth, even as it causes widespread suffering, disorder, and unrest. It is both a source of repression and a catalyst for global movements of social justice and emancipation. Global warming and global inequity are linked, as global warming exacerbates poverty. Even now it is far more devastating globally than terrorism, which currently distracts western powers. Inequity is growing, yet funds can't be found to meet even agreed limited targets to help developing countries adapt. Poverty is the lack of freedom to meet one's basic needs and those of one's family. Hunger, disease and vulnerability are today the fate of the 1.2 billion people living in absolute poverty.
The idea that global warming is bad for humans seems pretty darned obvious at first blush. Climate change and poverty are two parts of the same problem. They are the most complex issues the world faces and are intrinsically interlinked.

This point is illustrated by two examples:
• How the loss of ice in the Himalayas could lead to massive water stress for millions of people in surrounding countries; and
• The acute vulnerability of Africa due to the continent's dependence on agriculture.
On the second point inequity evident in climate change is highlighted. For example People in Africa contribute the least to global greenhouse gas emissions but suffer the worst consequences of them.
Even the activists at the (G8) summit in Germany, have underscored the need for progress with both climate change and poverty alleviation as key items on the meeting's agenda -- for there to be real improvement in poor countries living conditions. Global warming can be expected to have a powerful effect on weather conditions by raising temperatures on the land and decreasing the predictability of rainfall. Through a number of mechanisms, these changes can be expected to have an impact upon poverty. "If the threat of climate change is not removed, it will wipe out all efforts to help the poor through commitments such as aid," said Ciara O'Sullivan, media coordinator for the Global Call to Action Against Poverty - an international coalition grouping civic organizations from over 100 countries. The correlation between poverty and destruction resulting from natural disaster seems to hold up not only with a cross-section of nations, but also over time. As nations become wealthier, their losses of human life from natural calamities tend to fall. Countries that experience economic growth are putting themselves in a better position to reduce the number of deaths that result from natural cataclysms, and the clearest way to produce that economic growth is to allow people to interact in the marketplace without government intrusion. Furthermore, they are not well connected into knowledge networks, which could assist them to develop strategies to cope with changing environments. Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government hopes to achieve progress in talks in drawing up a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which will expire in 2012.
A growing concern from developing countries and various NGOs is the need for public participation and the effect on populations and poor countries that global warming negotiations have, given that the effects on poor people and poorer countries are much more. In some cases, climate changes have already affected some small island nations. Climate justice, equity and sustainable development are all important parts of this debate that are often left out of mainstream discourse. A growing concern from developing countries and various NGOs is the need for public participation and the effect on populations and poor countries that global warming negotiations have, given that the effects on poor people and poorer countries are much more. In some cases, climate changes have already affected some small island nations.
Climate change is already having in rural and urban areas of the developing world.

There is a relationship between poverty and climate change:
• Climate change is a case of extreme injustice on the part of the industrialized world. It has generated more than 80% of emissions to date and poor people have had to accept the consequences of this. It is therefore the moral responsibility of the industrialized world to take the lead in tackling the issue.
• Climate proofing development is crucial for making progress.
• The industrialized world has to find ways to reduce its emissions and ways of helping the developing world to "leapfrog" the fossil fuel based development path that the industrialized world has taken.
Ashok Sinha, Director, Stop Climate Chaos Coalition described the three policy objectives of Stop Climate Chaos:
• Politicians need to understand what global threshold in temperature increase is acceptable before changes in climate become extreme and unpredictable. They then have to understand that keeping below this threshold is the ultimate policy objective.
• The UK needs to get its own house in order by setting a policy objective of reducing its emissions by 3% each year. This must apply to every sector, including transport.
• The developed world needs to take the lead in dealing with the injustice that is resulting from climate change. Dealing with climate change means looking after the worlds poorest first. This will involve assisting the poor in pursuing development in a clean way and adapting to climate change impacts.
The way we power our global economy, shifting away from a century's legacy of unrestrained fossil fuel use and its associated emissions in pursuit of more efficient and renewable sources of energy. This transformation requires society to engage in a concerted effort, over the near and long-term, to seek out opportunities and design actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.