| This seems like a great opportunity for African countries to build on their energy infrastructure which would both generate revenue for governments and provide a stable industrial environment for development. It sounds like a critical missing component in Africa's economy. Although this would also depend on the public's ability to pay for monthly/yearly energy fees which might depend on subsidies. I've read a few articles mentioning how Africa has been inspired by China in recent years who focused on infrastructure as a base for domestic growth instead of just exports or raw materials. I can't imagine the struggle it must be to survive without access to energy and clean water. Our household recently had our pipes burst from freezing and were nearly at a breaking point after three days without water. Worse yet is the occasional black out. So I'm very sympathetic to this cause. Bill and Melinda are doing some great work. Sidenote: > Changes in weather often mean that their crops won’t grow because of too little rain or too much rain. That sinks them deeper into poverty. That’s particularly unfair because they’re the least responsible for emitting CO2, which is causing the problem in the first place. Is this really true? I thought farms were responsible for the most generation of CO2 and pollutants? At least in North America livestock accounts for something like 50% of the pollution (aka "cow farts"), even more so than oil/coal. The worlds obsession with meat is actually more harmful to the environment than cars/gasoline... but this is never popularly advertised thanks to efforts of the livestock industry and willful blindness by government agencies. |
Well without going into the specifics of which industry outputs the most CO2, I think it's a fairly uncontroversial statement to make that (particularly on a per capita basis), the poorest people on the planet output the least CO2. Whereas we, the richest, output the most CO2, but will not be hit as hard (at least in the short-medium term) by climate change.
I think that's the gist of his statement.
In places like Mali or Malawi, the CO2 emissions are roughly 2 orders of magnitude lower than some of the highest places like Qatar or the US, in China it's roughly one order of magnitude. And that doesn't even factor in that China doesn't 'consume' a significant portion of the end products that generate the emissions. i.e. it emits a lot, in part, because it produces for consumers in the west, meaning they're really our offshored/outsourced emissions.