AI – Anything Intelligent

The worldwide response against climate change has a variety of opponents. Some object to the scientific basis of global warming; others believe committing vast amounts of time and money towards climate change is not the world’s top priority. Those resources, they say, should address pressing issues like global poverty and greater economic development. Over the next few weeks, Anything Intelligent will feature a blogger debate over prioritizing climate change and poverty in the international community.

This first installment from the blog A. Thompson Monitor lays the groundwork for “A Pro-Poor Approach to Reducing Carbon Emissions.” With consent from the author, the first few paragraphs appear below. The full post can be found here.

This post is one in a series of debates between myself and Alexander Hurst of the Hurst Critique. http://www.hurstcritique.com/ In this first post I explain that while carbon emission cuts in the long-term are necessary, developing countries should be prioritizing poverty eradication and sustainable economic growth with their public investment dollars.

Environmentalists and political commentators in the US recently went into a tizzy when India’s Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, told the United States’ Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, that he refused to submit to pressure from the U.S. to lower carbon emissions.The United States is among a host of other rich countries that want to see a coordinated strategy to cut global greenhouse gasses that are contributing to the un-natural warming of our planet. India, like China believes that any significant reduction would impede their attempts at high-speed economic growth—a necessary aspect of poverty eradication.

Of course there is indisputable evidence that global warming is a threat to all countries rich or poor, but scientists agree that the impact of climate change will not be shared equally among actors. Poorer developing countries will bare the larger brunt of a warming process that was almost exclusively generated by pollution in richer nations over the last 200 years. It is unrealistic for industrialized countries to expect poor nations to commit to excessively broad carbon emissions reduction proposals. In this part of the world it is poverty eradication, not an impending environmental catastrophe that is the spending priority for governments.

Austin Thompson is a recent graduate of Howard University in Washington D.C. His blog A. Thompson Monitor focuses on international development.