Least Responsible Pay The Most

Upsetting the Balance
Thomas L. Friedman
The New York Times

"...'We have a message here to tell these countries, that you are causing aggression to us by causing global warming,' President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda told an African Union summit in Ethiopia last February. 'Alaska will probably become good for agriculture, Siberia will probably become good for agriculture, but where does that leave Africa?'

A study by Oxfam, entitled 'Africa -- Up in Smoke,' noted that in line with climate models, droughts in northwest Kenya appear to becoming more frequent. It profiled the impact on the nomadic pastoralists of Kenya's northwest Turkana region, who graze cattle, camels and goats. They've always known droughts, but because they are now more frequent, families and animals have less chance to recover.

The Turkana people, said Oxfam, call this more persistent drought ' 'Atiaktiak ng'awiyei' or 'the one that divided homes' because so many families split up to survive, migrating in all directions.'

It really is wrong that those least responsible for climate change should pay the most. 'My recommendation is that the biggest polluter pays,' said Mr. Kipng'etich. 'We are one planet, one system.' He has a point. He deserves an answer."

Photo Credit: Thomas Friedman. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

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