Trickle Down, Torrent Up

Source: polyp.org.uk

Half the world’s people own $1.76 trillion.  That’s a lot of money – $176 followed by ten zeros.  It is hard to imagine that amount of money isn’t it?  But 62 people in the world can, because these 62 people own the same amount: $1.76 trillion.

Yes, according to a recent Oxfam report,¹ just 62 people own as much wealth as half the world’s population.

Let’s try to put that into perspective and see if we can imagine the numbers involved.  On average each of those 62 people has a wealth of about the same as 58 million people.  Imagine that: one person having as much wealth as the populations of Australia and Canada combined!

Or, put another way.  Those 62 people could travel together on two buses with room to spare.  To meet the travel requirements of the 3.6 billion people making up half the world’s population would require a fleet of 90 million buses!

Furthermore, and more alarming is the statistic that the world’s richest 1% have an accumulated wealth greater than that of the other 99%.  Although this statistic is quoted by Oxfam, the statistic itself comes from none other than Credit-Suisse, one of the world’s top ten investment banks.

But it’s okay some say because the rich are undertaking benevolent and worthy philanthropic projects.  Yes, that is true; we have recently witnessed the rise in philanthropic giving on behalf of the rich.  The number of philanthropic foundations has increased, as has the amount being given by them.

That is good, isn’t it?  Not really, according to Linsey McGoey at the University of Essex who points out that:

“Philanthropy may be growing, but only in the context of rampant inequality.”

McGoey is quoted in another recent report, this one published by the Global Policy Forum.²  This report questions the role of large-scale philanthropic organisations and the rich individuals who run them.  The authors claim that these wealthy philanthropists:

• maintain undue influence over the agendas of global institutions,
• apply quick-fix, technological solutions instead of looking at longer term and structural issues,
• weaken democracies,
• are unreliable for ongoing financing, and
• lack monitoring and accountability mechanisms.

The report analyses the activities of two of the world’s biggest philanthropic foundations: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation.  It focuses on two sectors: health and agriculture.  In both cases, and in each sector, it finds these philanthropies wanting.

Unhealthy Philanthropy

In the health sector the authors found that the involvement of these foundations undermined a more holistic approach to health and stifled scientific creativity.  There was an unhealthy revolving door between the Gates Foundation and pharmaceutical companies, noting that many of the Foundation’s staff had held positions at some of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies, e.g. Merck, Novartis, Bayer, Pfizer and others.

The report sums up it’s analysis of the role of wealthy philanthropists in the health sector by saying that:

“…too often the underlying more complex socio-economic causes of health problems and the need to strengthen public health systems have remained neglected.”

Damaging Farming

In agriculture too, wealthy philanthropists have been distorting and damaging infrastructure and local systems.  The main problem, according to the authors of this report, is that the philanthropists believe that the problem of hunger is caused by lack of technology, knowledge, and access to markets.  The money and influence of the philanthropists is directed in this top-down way with little or no support being given to local, small-scale farming.

The authors note that the structural issues underlying the problems of hunger are not recognised and certainly not addressed by the wealthy philanthropists.  These criticisms are endorsed by La Via Campesina, the global peasants, small farmers, fisherfolk, and indigenous peoples organisation.  In 2010 La Via Campesina criticised the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for purchasing 500,000 shares in Monsanto.  Dena Hoff, the North American coordinator of La Via Campesina said at the time:

“The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust’s purchase of Monsanto shares indicates that the Gates Foundation’s interest in promoting the company’s seed is less about philanthropy than about profit-making. The Foundation is helping to open new markets for Monsanto, which is already the largest seed company in the world.”

Not just the largest seed company in the world but also one of the world’s must unethical companies, according to Covalence, the Swiss-based organisation monitoring the world’s companies on Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG), Corporate Social Responsibility, ethics and sustainability, using online media monitoring, natural language processing and human analysis.  In fact, Covalence ranked Monsanto the most unethical company in it’s 2015 survey, claiming it to be:

 “… leads the world in the production of genetically-engineered seed, (and) has been subject to myriad criticisms.  Among them: the company is accused of frequently and unfairly suing small farmers for patent infringement.”

No wonder La Via Campesina are critical of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The trickle down theory of economics hasn’t ever worked, and it still isn’t.  In recent decades the trickle has dried up, and it has become an upward flowing torrent.  Claims of tempering this inequality with philanthropic “generosity” are extremely dubious.  We must beware of such beneficent sounding programmes.  They can often be doing more harm than good.

1. Oxfam Briefing Paper, An Economy for the 1%, January 2016

2. Global Policy Forum is an independent policy watchdog that monitors the work of the United Nations and scrutinises global policymaking. We promote accountability and citizen participation in decisions on peace and security, social justice and international law.

Enlightened Leadership

Ashoka the Great

Enlightened leadership.  Is there such a thing?  Can we point to any of today's world leaders and say “there is an enlightened leader?”  Sadly, with one or two exceptions, the answer appears to be “no.”

Yet, it is possible.  Every so often throughout history an “enlightened” leader arises or emerges.  In our recent history we can think of leaders such as Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi or Vaclav Havel.

Further back in history there have been other examples.  Here is a brief story of just one, from well over two thousand years ago.

Ashoka Maurya was born in 304 BCE in India and inherited the leadership of the Maurya Dynasty which at that time included most of the Indian subcontinent as well as parts of what are now Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh.  Initially Ashoka ruled with an iron fist becoming known as Ashoka the Fierce.  However, Ashoka had a change of heart.  There are a number of stories as to what exactly prompted his conversion, with the most common one being that after a particularly brutal battle Ashoka was surveying the battleground and noticed a Buddhist monk serenely walking along a nearby road.  The story goes that seeing the serenity of the monk alongside the carnage and suffering that Ashoka had caused moved him to sorrow and remorse.  He was moved to exclaim

“What have I done? If this is a victory, what's a defeat then?“

From that day forth Ashoka converted to Buddhism and became one of the most enlightened leaders the world has ever seen.  Amongst his edicts and accomplishments the following are remarkable (remember, this is over 2200 years ago!):

• encouragement of nonviolence in personal life and statehood,
• respect for all religions and cultures,
• he had wells dug and trees planted alongside roads in order to give shelter and respite to all,
• banned the killing of “all four-footed creatures that are neither useful nor edible,” as well as numerous birds, fish and bulls,¹
• got rid of the “Royal Hunt,”
• provided for medical care for humans and animals as of right,
• treated animals as citizens with rights,
• brought fairness to the justice system, often pardoning prisoners,
• banned slavery,
• stopped deforestation
• advocated gender equality in education and religion,
• assisted students, poor, orphans and the elderly,
• advocated and promoted generosity.

Ashoka was the first leader of an empire, dynasty or nation to implement many of these reforms and innovations.  It’s remarkable really isn’t it, when we look at some of these and then look at some of the practises that still exist in the world today – the 21st century!

Enlightened Leadership?  Yes, it is possible.  Ashoka the Great (as he became known) is but one example from history.

1. e.g. parrots, pigeons, geese, ducks, bats, queen ants, terrapins, boneless fish, tortoises, porcupines, squirrels, and others.

Permanent (in)Security

Source: polyp.org.uk

The United Nations has a Security Council made up of ten non-permanent member states and five permanent member states: USA, Russia, France, China and the UK.  The primary purpose of this body is the maintenance of international peace and security.  So, why is it that over 70% of the world’s arms trade come from these five permanent members? (1) Furthermore, the US alone is responsible for almost 1/3rd of the world’s arms trade and Russia around 1/4.  Why is it, then, that the permanent members of the world body responsible for peace are also the nations who stand to benefit economically the most from the continuation of warfare?

This trade is not insignificant at more than $400 billion.²  When we consider that this amount of money is thirteen times the amount required to halve the number of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation,³ it is readily apparent that our priorities are skewed.

The two largest profiteers from arms manufacturing (Lockhead Martin and Boeing – both based in the US) had sales of over $30 billion each in 2013.  Six of the ten largest arms manufacturers are based in the US, with combined sales of $106.7 billion in 2013.  That is a huge figure – greater than the GDP of more than half the nations of the world.

Where do these arms sales end up?  Developing nations are the recipients of 84% of arms deals⁴ - the very nations whose people are those without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.  This fact beggars two questions.  First, why do these nations buy arms?  Second, why do the rich nations, mostly in the form of transnational corporations sell armaments to them?

The answer to these two questions comes down to just two P words: Profit and Power.  The two are inextricably linked.  Profit = Power = Profit = Power… ad nauseum.  We all know it.  We’ve all seen it.  We have seen it in numerous guises over the years.  Western nations selling off their dangerous, toxic and murderous commodities to those in developing nations.  We’ve seen it with powdered milk products for babies.⁵  We’ve seen it in harmful insecticides and pesticide sales to India and African nations.

The arms trade is a nasty, vicious and utterly immoral trade.  And, it is those very nations who have the responsibility for peace and security who are the major suppliers, and who gain to benefit most from the selling of death and destruction.  Certainly, there are those who are prepared to buy and they have to take their own responsibility for that.  But, we who live in the richer nations have a responsibility to call our governments and businesses to task. 

The arms trade, like the slave trade earlier, is an economic activity that should be relegated to the history books and not part of our future stories.

1. SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) Yearbook 2015.
2. This figure does not include China’s state-owned arms manufacturers. 
3. Costing MDG Target 10 on Water Supply and Sanitation, World Water Council, March 2006. p vi
4. Richard Grimmett & Paul Kerr, Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 2004-11, Congressional Research Service, August 24, 2012
5. In the 1970s, following a damning issue of New Internationalist, a boycott of Nestle was launched because of it’s aggressive marketing of baby formula within developing nations.  The campaign is coordinated now by International Nestlé Boycott Committee.

Let's Play a Game

At this time of year, in western-styled nations, it is a time of holidays, a time for families to get together.  Often that means getting out a board game and playing it for an hour or two, maybe after the evening meal.  What are we likely to pull out?  Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit or Scattergories?  Maybe something even older: dominoes, chess, ludo, snakes and ladders.

Have you ever noticed that all of these are competitively based?  There are winners and losers.  Often, it’s an all-or-nothing outcome.

There are some games, however, that teach us more collaborative approaches to life and relationships. 

One such that I recently had a chance to try out was GROK it!¹  Rather than a single game though, GROK it! is a kit of 150 games and exercises all designed to teach the skills and techniques of nonviolent communication.  But wait, there’s more.  Included in the kit are manuals, resources, background notes, inspirational stories and poems.  Enough to keep an entire family occupied for many holiday evenings.

I recently took along a couple of the games and exercises to a group of men who mentor other men.²  We had time to play just one of the games that explore our feelings.  We learnt about feelings, false feelings, and the difference between feelings and perceptions.  The men were keen to further explore the exercises contained in the kit, suggesting to me that the exercises are engaging, fun, and have something to teach us all.

Nonviolent communication (NVC) was developed by Marshall Rosenberg in the 1960s whilst working with civil rights activists.  The NVC model of communication has four components:  observations, needs, feelings, and requests.

• Observations are what we see, hear, touch, taste etc., and are to be distinguished from judgements or evaluations. 
• NVC holds that all our actions are intended to get our needs met, and that conflict occurs not because of differing needs, but because of differing strategies used to get our needs met. 
• Our feelings arise from either having our needs met, or having them not met.  It is important to be able to recognise that feelings and thoughts are completely different and that some things that we believe to be feelings turn out to be thoughts in disguise – what the GROK it! designers call false feelings. 
• Finally, requests are not the same as demands meaning that the requestor must be open to getting “no” for an answer, and then not use force in order to have the “request” met.

Jean Morrison and Christine King, the creators of GROK it! are NVA trainers and have developed these exercises and games as tools in their training.  They have now made these exercises, games, tools, handouts, worksheets, and resources available, at minimal cost, to those who wish to gain a better understanding and expertise in nonviolent communication.  They have done a wonderful job in putting this kit together.  I would thoroughly recommend obtaining this kit for your family, your workplace, or as a resource kit for those working in social change organisations.

1. Grok is a word taken from Robert Heinlein’s science-fiction book Stranger in a Strange Land and means “to drink” or, in this setting “to take it all in.”

2. MENtors for Men is a voluntary group, based in Coffs Harbour (Australia) who offer their time as mentors for other men.

5 Success Stories for 2015

Sometimes those working for social justice or towards a more sustainable world can feel overwhelmed by the odds we face.  It can seem that no matter what we do, the issues we face are becoming more entrenched, worsening, and becoming more widespread.

So, it can be worthwhile to take a step back and reflect on some of the positive achievements that have been made.  There are many that could be showcased, but here are just five. 

Keystone XL Pipeline Dismissed

Phase IV of the giant Keystone XL pipeline was to have brought oil from the oil sands of Alberta (Canada) all the way through to Steele City in Nebraska.  The pipeline would have added 800,000 barrels of oil per day to only worsen the problems of climate change.

However, in a massive display of public opposition including an unique alliance between mid-Western farmers and native Americans (the Cowboys and Indians Alliance) the pipeline was disrupted physically, politically and legislatively.  Opposition took place not just along the route of the pipeline, but throughout the US, with hundreds arrested at the White House in March, after tying themselves to the fence.

On 6 November 2015 President Obama rejected the proposal.  Bill McKibben, co-founder of the group 350.org, noted that this “is nothing short of historic, and sets an important precedent that should send shockwaves through the fossil fuel industry.”

Divestment Increases

One of the most innovative campaigns opposing the fossil fuel industry has been the Divestment Campaign.  Indeed, divestment was one of the factors involved in the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline.  The campaign calls on individuals and institutions to withdraw their funds from companies associated with the fossil fuel industry.  Companies targeted include banks, insurance providers, universities, large charities, and wealth funds, as well as smaller, local institutions.  Individual investors have closed their accounts with banks that continue to invest in the fossil fuel industry, and shifted to financial institutions that pledge to not fund such companies.

Some well-known celebrities, including Leonardo di Caprio, have supported this campaign and have committed to divesting.  The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund¹ (worth $945 billion) is the biggest divestor yet. 

The campaign now covers 43 countries and as of September 2015 it is estimated that over US$2.6 trillion has been withdrawn from the fossil fuel companies.  The value of divestments in 2015 rocketed by over fifty times the level it had been at just a year ago.  The 436 known institutions to have divested represent almost 650 million people world-wide.

The campaign is truly a world-wide, financially significant, phenomenon.

Making Bankers Responsible

Whilst most western countries were bailing out the banks and other financial institutions following the 2008 financial crisis, the small nation of Iceland took a decidedly different tack.  Iceland decided to make those at the heart of the collapse responsible for their actions.  So far, 26 bankers have been jailed in Iceland, with a combined prison sentence between them of 74 years.  This is in complete contrast to that of rewarding bankers elsewhere with bail-outs at the expense of everyday citizens.  In fact, Iceland intends paying every Icelander kr30,000 after the government takes back ownership of the second of the there major Icelandic banks.

Iceland is the only European nation to have fully recovered from the financial crisis, including paying back in full it’s debt to the IMF – ahead of time.  Asked how Iceland managed to do this, the President, Olafur Ragnar Grimmson, replied that:

“We were wise enough not to follow the traditional prevailing orthodoxies of the Western financial world in the last 30 years.”

Wise indeed.  Would that a few other governments had the courage to expose the fraud, corruption and deceit of the world’s banking systems.

Flagging Down Racism

Flags may be just symbols, but symbols can be very powerful.  For many black Americans the Confederate flag is a symbol of a system that was based on slavery, an extreme outward show of racism.

In 1961 the Confederate flag was flown from the dome of South Carolina’s statehouse to mark the 100th anniversary of the American Civil War.  It remained there as a symbol of opposition to the civil rights movement.  In 2000 amidst protests it was moved to a flagpole near a Confederate monument in the Statehouse grounds, as a compromise.

However, the massacre of nine people in an historic black church in Charleston in June 2015 sparked further protest, not just in South Carolina, but throughout the US.  The person accused of this crime had posted photos of himself posing with the Confederate flag and guns before the shootings.  Within a month of the racially inspired killings South Carolina lawmakers had passed by 93-27 votes a law requiring the flag to be removed from Statehouse grounds.

Of course, there is nothing in this act that suggests historic revision.  Recalling history and exhibiting memorabilia from those times is entirely appropriate.  However, displaying the Confederate flag on flagpoles in the state capitol would be akin to the Nazi flag being flown above the Reichstag in Germany.

Getting Real on Domestic Violence

Research by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2013 found that “worldwide, almost one third (30%) of all women who have been in a relationship have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by their intimate partner.”  In Australia the incidence is similar, if not, somewhat higher – possibly as high as 40%.

So, it was pleasing to note that the Queensland government, in August 2015, adopted all 140 recommendations in the report by the Special Taskforce on Domestic and Family Violence.²  Adopting the recommendations, the Queensland Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuck, noted that “the time is right for action and I believe the community has the will to change," going on to say that the State would work to bring about a shift in attitudes towards domestic and family violence.

Measures include funding for more crisis centres, a campaign of education, a review panel to identify gaps in procedures and systems, and funding to help develop services for clients. 

In an age of heightened awareness of domestic and family violence it is heartening to find a government willing to take on board all recommendations made by an independent taskforce.

Further Successes

As I write this blog news is coming out of Paris that an agreement has been reached that would see the nations of the world halt global temperature rise to 2 degrees, with a target of just 1.5 degrees.  The success or otherwise of this agreement will be seen over the next couple of years.

Let us celebrate these and other successes from 2015, and look forward to more in 2016.

1. Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG).  It is likely to divest of $9 billion – $10 billion from fossil fuel industries.
2. Not Now, Not Ever: Putting an End to Domestic and Family Violence in Queensland.  Report produced by Special Taskforce on Domestic and Family Violence, chaired by Honourable Quentin Bryce and presented to the Queensland government on 28 February 2015.

Note: This is the final posting on this site for 2015.  The next posting will be in the second week of January 2016.

Beasts and Gods (A Review)

Democracy:  the hallmark of a civilised society, the pinnacle of our search for equality and freedom, the best political system ever devised.  Well, not according to Roslyn Fuller.

In Beasts and Gods: How democracy changed it’s meaning and lost it’s purpose,¹ Roslyn Fuller picks through our democratic claims to fairness, equality, freedom, and representation; and finds all of them wanting.

Fuller presents a compelling case against our electoral/representative democracy.  Using case studies from all over the world, plus devastating statistics, Fuller shows how modern democracy has enabled those with wealth to obtain political power, and then those with political power to gain more wealth.  Simultaneously, the rest of society are excluded from public decision-making and not even represented in the process.

With clear examples Fuller unpicks many of the myths that continue to support our hold on electoral democracy as a sacrosanct institution. 

• Representation is “mathematically impossible” when such a small number of citizens represent an entire nation.  Furthermore, Fuller claims, tinkering with the system will get us no closer to accurate representation.
• Getting elected costs money, meaning that those who are rich, or have access to money (from corporate donations etc.) have a greater chance of being elected.  Pulling together statistics from various nations, Fuller shows that as the amount of money spent in a campaign increases so too does the chance of being elected.  So much so that if one candidate spends just twice the amount of another, the chance of being elected can be 90%.  If that ratio  increases to 5:1 then the chances of election become 100%
• Not even the use of referenda can make a difference.  Because referenda are used so infrequently, they just become another bottleneck (as Fuller terms them), along with elections, for the rich to assert their influence.
• Participation is one of the greatest myths of electoral democracy.  Large corporations have the inside running and the rest of society is shut out.  Even using petitions only gives the petitioners the right to ask politicians to do something, they do not enable citizens to do anything.  Protest is often claimed to be essential to democracy, but as Fuller exclaims, “far from being a part of democracy, protest is a reaction to a lack of democracy.” (emphasis in original)
• Those who control the media essentially also control the political system and who gets elected.  Fuller uses damning case studies to prove her point.
• But it gets worse.  Once we get to international politics and representation, the problems at national level only get heightened, intensified and exacerbated.  Taking just one of Fuller’s many examples, the IMF is a case in point.  Although the USA has just 4.4% of the world’s population it has 16.7% of the votes on the IMF.  Japan at just 1.8% of the world’s population claims 6.2% of the vote.  Meanwhile, those on the Indian subcontinent with 20% of the world’s population hold on to just 2.8% of the votes.  This, and numerous other examples indicate how the poor are cut out of decision-making, thus exacerbating the power/wealth imbalance.

Fixing It

It would seem that democracy is broken and that we need to fix it.  But, asserts Fuller, what we have is not even democracy.  It doesn’t even derive it’s identity from Athens where we have been taught it comes from.  Our present system finds its roots in another city and another system – the oligarchic Roman Republic.  Whatsmore, Rome decayed from the inside and there are signs that our current electoral system is doing the same, for the same reasons.

So, what does Fuller suggest we do?  Look to the true source of democracy she replies: Athenian demo-kratia, literally "people power."  The Athenians had already tried elections and had discarded them as being not democratic enough.  They brought in two new elements in public dialogue and decision-making: the Assembly and the cleroterion.

Most of us will have heard of the Assembly, whereby any Athenian citizen² could turn up to participate in public discourse and decision-making.  Up to 15% of those eligible did so, a far cry from the 0.01% (or less) that make up most of the parliaments of electoral democracies today.  However, many of us will not have heard of the cleroterion.  It was a simple piece of technology that allowed for a very simple method of selecting public officials randomly.  Yes, randomly, much like a lotto system today.³

The Athenian democratic system had  a lot going for it, according to Fuller.  It was fair, it was representative, it was equal, it provided for freedom.  Most of all, it was – democratic.

But, can it work today?  Why not, replies Fuller.  She describes a number of already existing technologies and processes that enable the use of both direct democracy and random selection.  For example:

• Participatory budgeting which originated in Porto Alegre, Brazil, but now used in New York, London, Toronto, Cologne, Paris and many other municipalities around the world.
• Citizens Juries whereby citizens are randomly selected to make public decisions on a number of issues.  The use of such juries is wide-spread and have proved to be highly effective.
• Online technologies such as LiquidFeedback, Loomio and DemocracyOS can be used in much the same way that the Athenian Assembly was used.

Fuller’s book is a welcome addition to the discussion about the future of democracy.  If this review does nothing more than whet the appetite for those thinking about running for political office in order to change something to read this book first, then it will have done it’s job.  As Fuller asserts, it is not that we need to find alternative candidates to vote for:

“We simply need to create a parallel politics that encourages real democracy.  Indeed, when one is locked into a self-perpetuating system, which is what the electoral representative system is, this is the only approach that really has any chance of success.”

That is something that we can all do.  First though, get a hold of this important book and read it.  It will change the way you think about democracy.

1. Roslyn Fuller, Beasts and Gods: How democracy changed it’s meaning and lost it’s purpose, Zed Books, London, 2015
2. At the time (6th to 4th centuries BC) citizenship in Athens did not include women, slaves, children or metics (Foreigners residing in Athens).  However, such criticism does not deny the basic democratic ideas.  We must remember that even our electoral system has only allowed women to vote since the early part of the 20th century, and many indigenous people have been disenfranchised until very recently.
3.  Indeed, the cleroterion bore an uncanny resemblance to modern day lotto machines.

Let’s Not Cop Out

Effects of sea level rise in the Maldives

This week (beginning 30 November 2015) COP21 began in Paris.  COP being the Conference Of Parties, an annual gathering of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, adopted in 1992.  The avowed aim of this conference is to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, with the aim of keeping global warming below 2°C.

Some are claiming that 2°C is too great a warming.  Significantly, it is the least developed nations calling for a target of 1.5°C.  Mr Giza Gaspar-Martins, from Angola, and chair of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) group said:

“The current plans to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions do not keep the world within the ‘safe’ temperature rise of 2°C. But from a Least Developed Country perspective, it is far worse than that. For the LDCs, economic development, regional food security, ecosystems, and the very survival of their populations and livelihoods are at risk if talks aim only for a 2°C world.”

Gaspar-Martins and the poorest nations of the world are supported by the Alliance Of Small Island States (AOSIS), who are already suffering the effects of sea level rise.  The chair of the Alliance, Thoriq Ibrahim from the Maldives¹ had this to say:

“Slower onset events like sea level rise and ocean acidification continue to assault our small states. Climate change in all its forms is a new reality for us and it is getting worse.”

He went on to say that

“a long-term temperature goal of well below 1.5 degrees must be reflected in the Paris Agreement, along with an indicative pathway for achieving it, including urgent peaking and deep mid-century emissions reductions.”

Those of us in the western-styled, rich nations of the world must take note.  It is the poor nations and the small island states that are experiencing the worst effects of climate change, yet they are the nations contributing the least to this change.  A simple graph plotting per capita GDP against per capita greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) is very telling.

In this graph the horizontal axis represents per capita GDP in US dollars and the vertical axis per capita tonnes of GHGs.  The vertical blue line marks a per capita GDP of $10,000 US – one hundred and twenty nations lie to the left of this line!  The graph is a scatter diagram with the red line representing the “line of best fit” showing the rough correlation between GDP and GHG emissions.
 
Telling, isn’t it?  Clearly, it is the rich nations that contribute most significantly towards GHG emissions and therefore climate change.

And we in the western-styled, rich nations continue to consume at ever alarming rates.  The richest 1/5th of the world’s population consume 86% of the world’s resources.²  Meanwhile one-third of the world’s population living in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, consume just 3.2%.

We must face it – it is our consumption patterns that contribute to climate change.  It is those of us in the western-styled, rich nations that continue to consume in great, excessive, obscene levels; who condemn those living in poor nations and small island states to the ravages of climate change.

Certainly, we must continue to ensure that our leaders put in place the policies needed at COP.  Certainly, we must continue to oppose mining and drilling for fossil fuels.  Certainly, we must continue advocating for renewable energy.

But, if we continue driving our cars to climate change rallies, continue to eat meat in vast quantities, continue to throw food away, continue to adopt the latest fads and fashions, continue to be hooked on electronic and telecommunications gadgetry then we will continue to cop out.³

Let’s not cop out.

1. The average height of the Maldives is just 1.2 metres above sea level, and the highest point is only 2.4m above sea level, making this nation the most vulnerable to sea level rise.
2. This 20% consume:  45% of all meat and fish,  58% of the total energy, 84% of all paper, have 74% of all telephone lines, and own 87% of the world's vehicle fleet.  (Source, worldcentric.org accessed 1-12-15)
3. Cop out is a slang term meaning to avoid or shirk responsibility, to fail to fulfil a commitment, or to provide an evasive excuse.