Retired military general and young creative protestors agree: The US must help the world’s poor adapt to climate change

Yesterday a Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee held a hearing to discuss helping the "world's most vulnerable nations" to respond to the droughts, floods and refugees created by climate change.

In general, the Senators and witnesses agreed that the US should contribute significant funds because poor people around the world are already suffering from the increased storms, droughts and diseases resulting from climate change.  Not to mention the fact that the world's poor contributed the least to the greenhouse gases causing climate change.

There was one outlier though, Kenneth Green of the American Enterprise Institute (funded by ExxonMobil and noted here for trying to pay IPCC scientists to criticize the seminal IPCC 4th Report) denied climate change and the significance of its impacts.  He showed little sympathy for the millions of poor people with no choice but to live in low-lying islands and along the coasts.  He suggested that they simply move away. 

In response, a few very polite women in the front row donned the snorkels they had snuck into the Senate and raised signs held high saying "Fund Climate Adaptation" and "Global Treaty Now." 

Many thanks to Morgan Goodwin of  Avaaz Action Factory DC for the photo. dc.actionfactories.org

The snorkels represented the people who live on small islands who have no other land to turn to.  The Government of the Maldives will be making the same point this Saturday by holding a Cabinet meeting underwater. 

These silent protestors were also standing up for the people who are threatened by more severe storms and flooding.  Likewise, they represent Sub-Saharan African nations which may be overcome by spreading deserts.  As one African delegate exclaimed at the climate talks in Bangkok last week: "We too will be drowning, in a sea of sand."

The most compelling of the witnesses was Charles F. Wald, a former General in the U.S. Air Force.  He indicated that scale of the problem of adapting to climate change is immense and we must act now.  He said 30,000,000 Bangledeshis will be displaced and they have nowhere to go.    Moreover, he echoed the refrain that investing in energy security and climate change is in our own security interest.

• Adaptation investments will prevent a worsening of the global security environment. As the IPCC notes in its 4th assessment report, climate change is a threat multiplier which can worsen the impacts of food shortages, water scarcity, migration pressures and conflict.
•  Adaptation funding will save the U.S. Government money. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In this case General Wald noted that the US military will have to respond to more humanitarian disasters as a result of climate change.  To illustrate the scale of the costs of such work; deploying 1000 troops to Afghanistan costs $1 billion.

Another witness David Waskow of Oxfam pointed to their new report which shows that US companies will benefit from adaptation investments.

The good news about this hearing is that the range of voices seemed to agree, the US must fund adaptation, at sufficient levels, now.  And the benefits will accrue for both the US and the world's most vulnerable people.