COP16 fizzles out as rich countries block global nature fund • The outcome left African and LatinAmerican nations furious and prompted some to refuse to engage on other biodiversity issues.

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1. >The European Union, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland all opposed the proposal to set up a dedicated fund to pay for nature restoration in poorer countries, arguing it would complicate the funding landscape without necessarily raising new money.

   Reminder that rich countries have *still* not hit their green climate fund targets years after the agreed upon deadline.

2. I think climate change is one of the biggest issues facing humanity, but unless the global north is willing to bend the knee and change the current paradigms of climate cooperation, we will not see any useful action.

   The climate pill is hard to swallow for developing countries because at it’s core it’s hypocrisy and a speech that borders on a modernized “white man’s burden” with a heavy dose of guilt-tripping to boot. To put it bluntly, one cannot develop without massive amounts of pollution and deforestation, and the techniques that allow for sustainable development are expensive and time consuming.

   The current issue is as follows ; the biggest stakeholders in the fight for climate change, the countries with the most to protect are mostly poor and middle-income countries who want to develop. Saving the world is some beautiful rhetoric, but almost no one is willing to handicap themselves and stay poor to save the world while Europeans and North Americans live lives where a school-aged child in Canada emits more carbon more than an adult in their own countries.

   There’s also the historical debt of the global north : they developed using stolen wealth from the countries they are urging to cut back as to save the planet, they have built palaces with blood money and are figuratively shutting the gate while telling the masses that were robbed that they need to make sure their tent-city doesn’t produce too much garbage because that could spread diseases.

   That isn’t even touching on greenwashing where rich countries export everything from their trash to their most polluting industries to poorer countries as to increase their sustainability scores without any real changes. China pollutes like crazy, but it’s undeniable that a large part of China’s pollution comes from producing goods for rich countries.

   Ditto for deforestation in the Amazon and Asia where forests are destroyed to send palm oil, meat, and soy to Europe, Australia and North America.

   There can be meaningful action on climate change that doesn’t come at a high cost to developed countries, we cannot ask the global south to halt or slow their development at great costs while the global north keeps an unsustainable standard of living.

   Sorry not sorry, but a thrifty, hippy-dippy vegan in Berlin produces so much carbon by merely existing that they will still eclipse the climate footprint of some person in semi-rural China who eats meat every day.

   As a result we cannot address climate change without dressing wealth inequality, colonialism, imperialism and the historical debt of wealthy countries in terms of climate change : Vijay Prashad [said it best](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxq1RoH_b5Y) during the last climate conference in Glasgow, the climate fight cannot exist without historical justice.

3. Developed nations attitude to climate change is frankly disgusting; we had our industrial revolutions and now no one else can do the same as its “irresponsible” all while our per capita rates of CO2 outstrip any developing nation, we refuse to meet targets despite being the most able while not impacting quality of life for citizens and refuse to offer any help to nations that dont necessarily have the capital to make the needed changes.

4. The handwringing around Chinese EVs and solar panels demonstrates that climate change is a crisis so long as it doesn’t inconvenience the economy. Do we really need to listen to lectures from these charlatans about how we must all do our part after that?

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