Africa Demands Climate Change Reparations...

I wrote a small summary on this subject earlier today,, but for whatever reason this particular topic hit me a little harder than news usually does, and I thought I'd go off a bit.

So, basically, Africa is moving to demand several billion dollars in climate change reparations for the damage caused by wealthier countries. Assuming, of course, that it is true that climate change is created through anthropogenic means (and I do believe that it is), there is certainly a level of rationality to the request. Africa is one of the lowest emitters of CO2 in the world, and stands to be among the areas of the world who suffer the most from the effects of climate change. It makes sense that those who caused the problem should be responsible for fixing it.

But at the same time, I can't help but think that global warming isn't really the issue here- Africa just wants more money. Once again, wholly rational, but the world is in a lot of turmoil at the moment, and I don't think that paying reparations before the damage even begins is going to help anyone- that money can be better pledged to help find solutions to minimize the damage to Africa and other countries and people, rather than fund a series of highly corrupt governments. Reparations should benefit the people that are affected by the issue, not just help out some politicians, and that it really the crux of the issue here. I don't know, perhaps I'm just being excessively negative again, but it seems to me that the request is rather thinly-veiled, although the other portion of the demands- a 40% decrease in emissions by 2012- sounds much more rational and fair, though it is the half that will never happen rather than simply being extraordinarily unlikely.