COMMUNITY
could also feed conflicts
as people contest access to arable land that
remains. Ironically, many
of the countries that
stand to be affected the
most by climate change
are among the poorest.
The impact they stand to
face is not proportionate
either to their wealth or
to the degree to which
they have contributed,
through pollution, to the
current global calamities.
Instead, richer countries
will be affected less, even
though they have more
resources to deal with the
problem, and contributed more to the problem
in the first place.
In an attempt to address
this great inequity, the
United Nations has created a fund to help poorer
countries deal with climate change. Named
the Green Climate Fund,
this initiative has been
sadly unsupported since
its inception in 2010 while
countries negotiated over
its design. Germany has
just been the first nation to
step forward and support
the fund, with an alloca-
tion of €750 million. Norway is expected to soon
follow suit, announcing a
pledge to the fund in September.
Environmental
organizations are calling
on other rich countries like
the United States, France,
Japan and the UK to follow suit and pledge to
this fund before the next
round of UN climate negotiations takes place this
fall.
Some may say that countries must attend to their
own bottom line, and stay
out of deficit, before contributing to a fund such as
this. But if we look at the
true bottom line, we see
that many countries are
running an environmental
deficit, taking more from
the earth than they put
back, doing more harm
than reparation.
With the environmental
devastation of the tar
sands, it behooves Canada as well to step up and
donate to this fund, allocating some of the wealth
generated in those sands
to the parts of the world
By Parvati Magazine staff
that will suffer because of
them.
If this fund matters to you,
we suggest that you contact your local federal
government representative (Member of Parliament, congressman or
senator) as well as your
environment minister, and
urge them to advocate
for a sizable donation to
the green climate fund.
It is a humanitarian investment, an investment
in peace. If we simply allow the devastation of
climate change to affect
these countries without
our help, then it could
come to pass that richer
countries will be spending
those dollars anyway in
dealing with an onslaught
of climate change refugees, or in sending troops
to regions where conflict
has erupted.
Lokah Samastah Sukhino
Bhavantu.