The climate crisis is unfolding before our eyes, and millions of people around the world are already experiencing the traumatic impact of extreme weather events in their everyday lives. From Pakistan, to Nigeria, to the Philippines, all the way to the United States.
Though no place is immune, countries in the Global South are carrying the brunt of the climate crisis, despite having historically contributed to global emissions the least. In June 2022: Pakistan saw record flooding. A huge swath of the country ended up under water, leaving over 33 million people in need of humanitarian assistance and claiming the lives of nearly 1,500. Later in the year, severe floods in Nigeria displaced over 1 million people.
Addressing climate change in the US and worldwide requires that we step up global coordination in international climate financing and that we open the policy space for developing countries to transition away from fossil fuels and cope with the impact of climate change.
No country can produce this global transition on its own in the timeframe necessary to prevent climate disaster. As the world’s two largest economies and biggest carbon emitters, the US and China hold the greatest responsibility and power to cooperate in forging a global path to sustainability.
Yet, as policy discourse consolidates around the inevitability of a “Cold War” with China, opportunities for the global climate cooperation we need are threatened, and so is the vital action we need to take to rapidly transform our global economy before worldwide temperatures reach catastrophic levels.
This is why it is so important for us to come together and change narratives and actions.
