Not Just a Rich Nations' Problem

Critics of efforts to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions often treat the problem as if the only countries with an interest in global warming were the developed countries. Poor countries, it is argued, have, or should have, other priorities like feeding their populations, controlling disease, and economic development. See, for example, the recent article by John A. Baden, PhD at www.free-eco.org. The argument advanced by Baden, an advocate of pure free-market economics, implies that global warming is a trendy, trivial problem that appeals to celebrities (some mentioned in the article) and frivolous leftists, while the trendy left ignores real problems like hunger and disease.

Quite apart from whether pure free-market economics will (or can) actually help lift poor nations out of their current plight—a debatable proposition—the argument that poor countries have no national interest in global warming is simply false. It is not in the interest of poor countries to experience droughts, crop failures, and other problems which, scientists generally agree, will result from global warming.

The British Environment Minister, Hilary Benn, gave a good summary of the effect of global warming on poor countries in an announcement of a new British initiative on climate change on July 14. The Government of England is controlled by the Labour Party, which does not, to be sure, advocate pure free-market economics. But Benn is likewise not one of the celebrities unfairly stigmatized by Baden's article. His announcement is, in fact, a powerful refutation of the illusion that global warming is only an issue in rich countries. It is not. We are all on this planet together. And our old ideologies—including free-market economics and old-style socialism—will not save us. Only new thinking and concerted effort to change will do that.