Paying a “Climate Debt”?

Last month, Senator John Kerry introduced the International Climate Change Investment Act of 2009, which is intended to “fund efforts to reduce deforestation, deploy clean energy technologies, and increase adaptation capacity in developing countries.” In addition, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that the United States would contribute to a climate change fund amounting to $100 billion a year by 2020. Apparently based on dubious assumptions of higher global temperatures by 2100, politicians on the federal level are aiming to hand over a significant sum of money from hard-working Americans to developing countries.

Many climate change alarmists and developing countries alike have stated that the United States and other developed countries are the primary cause of global warming because of our release of greenhouse gases over the past century. Many more are advocating a policy of paying back our “climate debt” to developing countries and have advocated for global wealth redistribution, such as “rich” nations handing over 1% of their annual GDP to developing countries. This would amount to $140 billion a year just from the United States.

For some, it seems that “saving the planet” from climate change has other perks as well. Supporting doomsday scenarios could end up being quite lucrative for developing nations since, according to Sen. Kerry’s bill, the American taxpayer would “provide predictable, stable, and sufficient financing to support global climate change goals.”

Todd Wynn is the climate change and energy policy analyst at Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market public policy research organization.