Poverty and Climate Change

In an effort to address global warming, rich countries appear willing to reduce their own emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (hereafter subsumed under the umbrella of CO2) by upwards of 80% or more by 2050, with the proviso that overall global emissions decline by 50%. One important justification for such targets is the notion that global warming will hurt the poorest people on Earth. The poverty argument is particularly used by many Christian groups that support such drastic actions to jeopardize the tremendous economic progress witnessed since World War II. (An example is Calvin DeWitt’s article, “Climate Care: Our profound moral imperative”, in The Banner, which is the official magazine of the Christian Reformed Church.) That action today will benefit the world's poor in 50 or 100 years from now is a flawed notion for four reasons.