A question of balance
The problem with climate change, is that it only affects those it affects. This is not as cryptic as it sounds. For many of us who go about our lives in the so-called ‘developed’ world, climate change is too often a distant issue. So – the earth is a couple of degrees warmer. So – the summers/winters are a bit wetter/dryer. So – there’s the odd flood here and there. That’s just the weather isn’t it?In a way, it is. But weather’s what you get – as in here and now; and climate is what you expect – in the sense of the state of the climate system. And many of us are too comfortable for the effects of climate change to really hit home. But at some point for many of us, it is our homes that will be hit. It’s only when that comfort has been taken away, and we realise that we can expect the same thing to happen year after year, that the difference between weather and climate gets fully appreciated. But that could be next week, next year, or in five or ten years time. So we change our light-bulbs, don’t leave the TV on standby, recycle our wine bottles, maybe think about buying a hybrid car…
Many people around the world don’t have the luxuries of time and space – in places such as Bangladesh, Tuvalu and the Maldives. For them climate change is a here and now issue.
It’s all-too-easy to condemn the power of the developed nations over the developing – US and EU v G77, but looking deeper into the each of their issues reveals the essence of this UN Summit – two sides driven by almost equal intensity, but with very different motivations.
Most of our climate change debaters live in developing countries, so you might expect them to take any opportunity to knock the more affluent powers. If you do, you’d be wrong. As the first week of Global Youth Panel Climate Change debating slips into a weekend of debating, browsing back through our week online reveals balanced views, intelligent comments, and genuine understandings of all sides of global politics and economy; as well as a realisation that deals have to be made and why.
A good example of this was our Bangladesh topic: ‘Bangladesh should get at least 15% of any climate fund’. We pitched our Bangladesh group against the rest of the world on this issue. Almost 60% disagreed, almost 27% agreed, the rest were undecided.
While the Bangladesh group may not have won the debate, they did gain the opportunity to passionately voice their predicament, for example: “According to our own experts, by 2050 Bangladesh shall cease to exist. The population of Bangladesh is 150 million, this many people cannot be rehoused as easily as the paltry populations of the AOSIS countries.” While on the ‘Against’ side: “But how would funding avert displacement? excessive inundation/flooding will still occur since the climate crisis has already begun. If anything, countries to where the Bangladeshis will be displaced, should get funding (to take care of inevitable flood victims)”.
You have to admire the sense of balance delivered by many of our debaters. How many of us would maintain a sense of reason if we found ourselves and our families, one morning, up to our knees in water, with no home, no work to go to, no food and nowhere to go. And if we lived under the threat of this happening tomorrow, what would we do about it today?