“My farm has been washed away,” Mr. Abdi said. It was the second year in a row of unusually heavy storms to have destroyed his livelihood, leaving him uncertain about how he will provide for his six children. “God knows,” he added, “but I don’t have anything to give now.” (New York Times)
Soon after the tragic typhoon in the Philippines, the 2013 international climate change conference took place. It has been known ever since climate change was officiated, that the lesser contributors to it will suffer the most from the consequences. Due to this "climate injustice", many natural disasters, such as the typhoon in the Philippines, have occurred, threatening the smaller islands' entire existence. However, we still do not agree how to take care of this problem, and that is what the 2013 international climate change conference's main topic was.
Lately, the poorer, smaller nations have been suggesting something even more than just reducing our carbon footprint: the world's richest, more developed countries that cause most of the world's global warming pay for the damage done to the nations effected by the pollution. However this compromise comes a long with much political and financial complexity - especially if it's for something like the typhoon in the Philippines, which, although some natural disasters are, may not have even been caused by climate change.
Many politicians and public speakers, even from the larger countries, think this is a good idea as they themselves feel responsible and are seeing the effects of global warming such as land-loss, diseases, as well as much more.
However, even with this new contribution to the pool of ideas, the world is still arguing over what to do, what do you think (comment below)? Whatever happens, global warming is already in action and the only way to prevent horrible consequences is to take action now.
For more information, check out: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/world/growing-clamor-about-inequities-of-climate-crisis.html (it includes an interesting video explaining how climate change effects natural disasters)
Next Week: The Death of Nelson Mandela (this will be on my World page) and Missing Monarchs
I agree with you that it will be difficult to determine absolutely that any natural disaster like the typhoon was caused by global warming, yet alone figuring out which countries should shoulder which percent of the damage costs. Huge disasters can cost tens of billions of dollars in terms of repair and losses. I think that the smaller countries, especially low lands and islands, should be helped with their re-building with aid from the bigger countries who contribute so much to global warming. Yet, I do know lawyers and the polluting countries could have lawyers defending them which make it so that the damage has to be proved to have been directly from the pollution that the wealthier country created. Legally that can be impossible to prove. Maybe the larger polluters can just agree to donate money each year to a disaster relief fund, perhaps even an amount that is in proportion to the amount of fuel the country burns. And, then that relief fund could be used by the areas that are destroyed by natural disasters. Maybe they could apply to the relief fund for help in re-building.
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