SOURCE:
USA TODAYURL:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/08/04/president-philippines-climate-change/88068444/by: Patrick Winn, GlobalPost
The president of the Philippines doesn’t dispute the apocalyptic nature of global warming. After all, his homeland is among the countries predicted to suffer most from the coming heat waves and hellish storms.
But he wants to make one point abundantly clear. These horrors of climate change are the fault of big nations, such as China and India, and rich ones such as the United States.
President Rodrigo Duterte is now issuing an ultimatum to nations that have been “destroying the climate.”
You can pay poor countries (like the Philippines) to forego cheap, dirty fossil fuels. Or, he says, our politicians will chuck your United Nations-brokered climate change treaty in the trash.
“China, America, Europe, they continued to emit their poisonous fumes in the name of prosperity,” Duterte said, according to the Philippine Star. “There really is climate change. But who caused it? Not us.”
Duterte delights in shocking statements. His ability to rile up media — with his wild takes on rape, drugs, guns and his own sexual prowess — is positively Trump-like.
But even against this backdrop of outrageous commentary, Duterte’s ongoing views on climate change are startling.
Remember that UN climate change agreement signed by nearly 200 countries? All of them agreeing at a Paris summit late last year that the rise in average global temperature, compared to the 1800s, should not exceed 2 degrees celsius?
Duterte says that treaty is “stupid.” And he claims to have said as much to an ambassador’s face. (The diplomat, whom he did not name, hails from a country Duterte described as a highly industrialized polluter.)
He says that his country has one of the fastest growing economies in the world and limiting carbon emissions will curtail economic growth, something the Philippines cannot afford if it wants to uplift the lot of their poor.
Duterte contends that the Philippines, without proper funding from top polluting nations, must junk the treaty and turn to dirty but cheap energy.
It’s a mistake to write this off as bombast from an impoverished island nation that churns out less than 1% of the world’s carbon emissions.
When it comes to climate change diplomacy, the Philippines has clout. It leads a league of 40-plus countries that are highly vulnerable to global warming. The country is known for appealing to the morality of top polluters: China, Russia, the U.S. and India.
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