Typhoon Fuels Call for Global Warming Compensation Funds

[xchrom]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-18/typhoon-fuels-call-for-global-warming-compensation-funds.html

The typhoon that killed thousands of people in the Philippines has energized debate about whether rich nations should compensate poor ones for climate-related losses, a proposal the U.S. and European Union are resisting.

Some 130 countries, including islands concerned they’ll disappear with rising sea levels, are pushing for reparations as part of a “loss and damage” mechanism at United Nations climate talks in Warsaw this week. They blame countries that industrialized 200 years ago for damaging the atmosphere.

“Many countries around the world are already incurring losses and damages from the impacts of climate change,” Yeb Sano, the Philippine lead negotiator whose hometown was flattened by the storm, said in an interview in Warsaw. “We’d like to make clear the difference between humanitarian aid and climate change compensation in the context of historical responsibility.”

The push reflects alarm about the havoc wreaked by the typhoon’s 195 mile-per-hour winds and anger that rich nations seem to be scaling back their ambitions for reducing greenhouse gases. For the first time since the UN started its annual climate talks in 1992, countries such as Japan, Australia and Canada are paring back measures to mitigate fossil-fuel emissions.

[pipoman]

1. FFS

“We’d like to make clear the difference between humanitarian aid and climate change compensation in the context of historical responsibility.”

I am sure you would. Greed comes in all shapes and sizes. Maybe we'd like to make clear that if you push you may see dramatic reductions in the historic, voluntary "humanitarian aid", eh?