<
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/11/01/why-we-must-defund-global-climate-wall>
"At a National Security Council meeting in September, U.S. Secretary of State
Anthony Blinken said that the consequences of climate change "are falling
disproportionately on vulnerable and low-income populations." He continued,
"And they're worsening conditions and human suffering in places already
afflicted by conflict, high levels of violence, instability." He assured his
colleagues that the climate crisis is a "core element of U.S. foreign policy"
and that "every bilateral and multilateral engagement we have—every policy
decision we make—will impact our goal of putting the world on a safer, more
sustainable path."
Blinken's sentiment was echoed by a report on the impact of climate change and
migration from the White House earlier this month, one of a slew of reports as
the U.S. prepared for the United Nations summit on climate change that begins
in Glasgow on October 31. According to the report, "The current migration
situation extending from the U.S.-Mexico border into Central America presents
an opportunity for the United States to model good practice and discuss openly
managing migration humanely, [and] highlight the role of climate change in
migration."
Hypothetically, these words might reassure the more than 1.3 million Hondurans
and Guatemalans displaced in 2020 by climate-induced catastrophes such as
droughts, hurricanes, and floods. But the lofty rhetoric is contradicted by
another story, one told by the U.S. government's budgets.
In a report titled
The Global Climate Wall, which I coauthored for the
Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute, we crunched the budget numbers for
seven of the countries most responsible for the climate crisis. These countries
collectively account for almost half the world's greenhouse gas emissions going
back to the mid-19th century. They include Canada, Australia, the United
Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, and the United States (which led the charge at
30.1 percent of emissions). All together, these rich, high-polluting countries
spend more than double on border and immigration enforcement budgets than on
"climate finance"—that is, helping vulnerable countries adapt to climate change
and transition to clean energy."
Via
libramoon@pluspora.com.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
