Our memories are short. We forget there was a time when the skies over our industrial states looked like China’s skies do today. And Lake Erie was on fire – literally. (Ok, so that’s how I remember it – In reality, the Cuyahoga River flowing into Lake Erie caught fire).
It drives some of us nuts that our elected officials rarely act until we are in crisis. It took burning water for Congress to pass the Clean Water Act.
Then Congress finally passed the Superfund law to clean up abandoned hazardous waste sites. By the time I became an environmental coverage lawyer a couple of decades ago, the EPA was suing Fortune 500 companies to clean up their waste sites and those sophisticated polluters in turn sued their insurers, claiming that decades-old liability policies covered their clean-up costs.
In Copenhagen, impoverished developing countries, especially those with land at sea level, will argue that the polluting countries should pay for the costs of adapting to a problem they didn’t create. It’s called the “polluter pays principle”. The developing countries will be seeking financing for adaptation in addition to the funds they receive for development, Michele de Nevers, senior manager of environmental development for the World Bank, said at the 2009 Governors’ Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles last week.
Financing will be one of the most contentious issues with estimates ranging from $5 billion to more than $100 billion a year, de Never said. As high as these numbers seem, they are small relative to the wealth of developed nations. She noted that reducing greenhouse gas emissions will reduce the cost of adaptation.
May all stakeholders take heed.
10.5.09
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