The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, otherwise known as the Climate Change Conference, meeting December 5th through the 12th in Poznan, Poland, has admitted that the richest nations will be asked to contribute $1 billion to a fund to help the poorest countries address climate change.
Boni Biagini, who heads the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) provision established in 2001, says the $1 billion is good, but $2 billion would be better.
Unfortunately, pledging has fallen far behind that goal, with only $172 million committed, largely by Germany, Denmark, Britain and the Netherlands contributing the most.
The United States, the richest nation in the world, and also the world's second largest emitter of global warming gases, has yet to give - a refusal based on a mistaken assumption that the fund is part of the Kyoto Protocol, which President Bush has refused to ratify.
Saleemul Huq, of the International Institute for Environment and Development, describes the Bush administration's refusal as "shameless" and hopes this scenario will change under president-elect Barack Obama.
This fund would help citizens of the Maldives, whose island nation is being covered by rising oceans, buy new land, since theirs is disappearing. In the Maldives, 80 percent of the 1192 coral islets are one meter or less above sea level, and the UN Panel on Climate Change predicts that - unless emissions are curbed - sea levels could rise another 11 inches before the end of the century (an estimate already being challenged as greenhouse gas accumulations soar out of control). In fact, a study recently published in the journal Science suggests sea levels could rise as much as six feet by the end of the century in a worse-case scenario.
Mohamed Nasheed, the new activist president of the Maldives, has proposed using tourism funds to buy new land, reportedly in Sri Lanka. Even so, it's difficult to imagine a tiny, sinking island nation generating enough tourism revenues to buy a nation-sized chunk of land anywhere, and this - climate change displacement - is precisely the purpose behind the underfunded LDCF.
The Maldivians aren't the only ones facing displacement. Other low-lying Pacific islands like Papua, Tuvalu, Kiribat, the Marshall Islands and Fiji could also disappear in this century. Bangladesh, Tianjin, China and 86 percent of Alaska's native villages face similar scenarios and, as the Christian Science Monitor points out, the legal status of these people (when displaced) remains unclear: no nation in recorded history has peacefully relocated an entire population and remained intact. More important, environmental refugees are not recognized by international law.
Alternet, a Reuters Foundation service that gives a heads-up to humanitarian agencies and environmental journalists, suggests that climate change will lead to greater and greater displacements in the years ahead. The only debate is how many, and analysts - who differ on their estimates - all agree the problem demands urgent action on an international scale.
Climate change is happening now. From Katrina to Nargis, storms are getting worse. Over the past two decades, the number of recorded disasters has doubled, to more than 400 per year. Floods are happening more often (about 50 in 1985 to more than 200 in 2005) and their path of destruction is larger. In fact, between 1988 and 2007, more than 75 per cent of natural disasters were climate-related, causing half again as many deaths as formerly and accounting for 80 percent of all losses as a result of natural hazards.
As John Holmes of the UN's Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief office notes: "Any credible vision of the future must recognize that humanitarian needs are increasing and that climate change is the main driver. We are already seeing its effects, in terms of the numbers of people affected and in the rising cost of response." These costs are also influenced by a rising global financial debacle. On December 11, at the Poznan talks, the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu accused rich nations of blocking funds that could help them survive rising oceans.
The final question is: where will we put the displaced, as climate change makes fewer and fewer landscapes habitable?
Related Reading:
Climate Change: Leaving Home for Nowhere
Rising Seas and Powerful Storms Threaten Global Security
