Russ Vernon-Jones

love, justice, and climate change … I know you can make a difference.

Fair Share

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Who is benefiting: Neo-colonialism and climate finance

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It has recently been reported that in 2022 the wealthy nations finally met their commitment to provide $100 billion per year in climate finance to the nations of the Global South. This might appear to be cause for celebration, but there is a not-so-pretty side to this story as well.

In 2009 the wealthy countries agreed that by 2020 they would provide the less wealthy nations with $100 billion per year to support climate action. That goal was reaffirmed in the Paris agreement in 2015. There are two major reasons for this aid to go from the wealthy Global North nations to the lower-income Global South nations.
1. The climate crisis has primarily been caused by the emissions of the wealthy nations while the major burden of its effects have been borne by the lower-income nations. This aid is essentially payment for having harmed the Global South nations. It is a debt owed by the Global North nations. (The wealthy nations have never agreed to put this rationale in writing, but the moral obligation is clear.)
2. Humanity will not be able to solve the climate crisis unless….

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Canceling the Debts of Global South Nations: A Necessary Part of the Worldwide Climate Effort  – Part 1

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We finally have a fairly widespread understanding that we must stop burning fossil fuels to solve the climate crisis. It is just as true that we must cancel the debts of Global South nations to solve the climate crisis. There is no other way. I recognize that statement will strike some of you as radical or unreasonable. It’s taken me some time to reach this conclusion. In this post I’ll try to show how I, and others, have arrived at this position.

We know that emissions anywhere cause climate change everywhere. That means that humanity must stop emissions everywhere.

We must stop emissions in the wealthy, developed nations (the Global North) that have been the primary cause of the climate crisis. But that will not be sufficient. By 2030, 50% of all global emissions will come from the poorer nations that we collectively term the “Global South” (not including China). Eliminating emissions from the Global South is key to solving the climate crisis and will improve public health and prosperity in those nations.

Nearly 60 countries of the Global South are in debt distress or at risk of it and are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

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Climate “Fair Shares” Explained – Video

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Over the last few years I’ve written several posts about the importance of humanity coming together to solve the climate crisis. It will be necessary to eliminate carbon emissions everywhere in the world. The money for doing that must come from those who have the capacity to pay and must assist those nations that don’t have the resources to transition to clean energy and adapt to climate change without outside financial assistance.

This is often called a “fair shares” approach. I’ve also written about the importance of sharing these ideas widely and beginning the process of building support among people in the wealthy nations of the world for such global financing. Now there’s a new 6-minute video available that gives a fine explanation. Rather than writing a blog post this week, I’m sharing the video with you here and encouraging you to share it with others.

The video is from the US Climate Fair Share project of the U.S. Climate Action Network and is narrated by Reverend Michael Malcom of the People’s Justice Council in Birmingham, Alabama.

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Where the Money Is – Solving a Global Problem

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Let’s imagine our Earth without any national boundaries for a few moments. Our species, homo sapiens, lives throughout the world–with different cultures and skin colors, but one species. We are all siblings. We share one atmosphere. We all face a huge global crisis – the climate emergency.

People everywhere are being affected by climate change–some much more severely than others. But we are all affected and will be even more affected in the near future–by heat waves, droughts, forest fires, floods, catastrophic storms, disruptions in agriculture and food systems, climate refugees, and more.

The biggest cause of this crisis is greenhouse gas emissions from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, exacerbated by deforestation and unhealthy agricultural practices. Emissions anywhere, cause climate change everywhere. This means that humanity is going to need to work together to stop emissions everywhere. Stopping emissions in our own geographic region (or country) will not be sufficient to stop climate change. We must move rapidly to stop emissions everywhere.

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We’re Aiming for the Wrong Climate Targets — Let’s Talk About Improving Our Aim

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Let’s forget about national boundaries and governments for a minute and face the fact that the whole world needs to reduce its collective greenhouse gas emissions. We — meaning all of humanity — need to emit close to 50% less by 2030 (and get to net-zero emissions by 2050). So far global emissions are still rising, so we need to make a dramatic turn in the next few years if we are to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. It’s a global problem — greenhouse gases emitted anywhere, cause problems everywhere.

Responsibility
How are we going to pull this off? Some would argue that each nation should reduce its emissions by roughly 50%. Despite the apparent even-handedness of that approach, it would be incredibly unfair and inequitable. Some nations have emitted far more greenhouse gases than others and played a much larger role in creating the climate problem.

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