Does the US Owe a Climate Debt?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


One of the most hotly contested issues at Copenhagen is the question of what, if anything, the US and other industrialized countries owe the nations least responsible for the accumulation of planet-warming gases in the atmosphere.

The United States has said that over the next three years it will commit $1.4 billion annually to a $10 billion short-term fund intended to help developing nations cope with the effects of climate change. The European Union volunteered last week to chip in $3 billion.

But that still leaves the question of how much rich nations will pony up over the long haul. The United Nations estimates that poor countries will need as much as $170 billion per year to adapt to climate change—$50 billion more than developed countries spent on aid in 2008. Other development groups have estimated that this task could cost two to three times that much. So far, rich countries have indicated that they’re only prepared to offer around $100 billion.

Developing nations, many of which are especially vulnerable to climate change, have balked at the prospect that Copenhagen may not produce a sizeable financial commitment from the countries that have contributed most to the warming of the planet. Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, the Sudanese chairman of the Group of 77, the bloc of least-developed nations, suggested on Thursday that an appropriate fund should total around $200 billion. On Friday his estimate had risen to $400 billion. Dessima Williams of Grenada, who chairs the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), has suggested a figure in the range of 1.5 percent of the GDP of developed nations. “It must be responsive to the damage that’s already done,” said Williams.

Whatever the number, the prevailing sentiment in the developing world is that the United States and other big polluters must pay up. “It was not us who put the waste in the atmosphere, but we are the first to suffer from that,” said Antonio Lima, a delegate from Cape Verde and the vice president of AOSIS. “Those who put the waste in the atmosphere have to clean it.” But negotiators for the most vulnerable nations worry that the matter of climate aid will not be adequately addressed. “We are afraid they are not going to take care of us in this process,” Lima said.

While the US has indicated that it will contribute money to help poor nations deal with climate change, negotiators have categorically rejected the idea of a climate “debt.” “I actually completely reject the notion of a debt or reparations or anything of the like,” said US climate envoy Todd Stern. “I mean, let’s just be mindful of the fact for most of the two hundred years since the industrial revolution, people were blissfully ignorant of the fact that emissions caused a greenhouse effect. This is a relatively recent phenomenon, so I think that’s the wrong way to look at this,” he continued. “We absolutely recognize our historic role in putting emissions in the atmosphere up there that are there now, but the sense of guilt or culpability or reparations, I just categorically reject that.” 

And the dollar figure for climate financing isn’t the only flashpoint. Another sensitive subject is whether any of this money should go to China and other rapidly developing economies. Last week Stern shot down that idea, too. “I don’t envision public funds—certainly not from the United States—going to China,” he said. His remark prompted some tough talk from Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei. “I don’t want to say that the gentleman is ignorant,” he said—before adding that Stern “lacks common sense” and is “extremely irresponsible.”

So as the second week of talks begins, the message from developing nations has become overwhelmingly clear: Show us the money.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate