Climate Change

The 500 richest families in the world now own more wealth than the poorest 500 million!  The most powerful 20 economies are not just countries, but huge multinational corporations. The growing gulf  between the richest and poorest hinders human solidarity. The gap between rich and poor countries includes a huge historic debt to the poorest in the world, whose commons have been grabbed. Even in the rich countries there are too many poor, and the gap is widening.

And it is not just poverty -- vulnerability is added to poverty. The impacts of climate change on the world's poor get worse every day. Within 8 months of the failure of the Copenhagen negotiations, we saw climate chaos hit people in Russia, Pakistan, Central America, South America just to name a few. Each tragedy increases the numbers of the poor and vulnerable. This is a simple fact.

These floods, fires, droughts and storms warn us that the risks we now face are worse than 10 years ago. Climate impacts will severely affect the Millenium Development Goals unless rich developed countries  substantially reduce their greenhouse emissions, honor their climate debt by transferring substantial financial support and clean technologies to the developing countries, and give the ¨space” for the planet to breathe again.

 mecteam.blogspot