Judy Woodruff:
We return now to the COP 26 climate change conference in Glasgow, Scotland, where leaders are trying to reach new agreements and commitments toward reducing emissions and slowing the impacts of global warming.
William Brangham is there for us all week.
In his report tonight, he looks at key questions about getting enough help to the world's most vulnerable nations.
William Brangham:
On the bustling streets of Dhaka, Mohammad Nirob is part of what's becoming the biggest migration inside Bangladesh. Seven years ago, the 45-year-old had to leave his wife and four kids behind in their village over 100 miles away to come here and earn money.
Why? His prior life and livelihood had been washed away by ever-increasing floods, ones that are getting worse in a warming world.
Mohammed Nirob, Displaced From Home (through translator):
I had run a business before. But the business is no more now. The shops, the houses have been devoured by the river. For more than half the year, our house was submerged two to three times a month.
When the high tide happened and the river water flowed into our house, it restricted our movements, our lives.
William Brangham:
Climate refugees like Nirob are partly why Dhaka is one of the fastest growing cities in the world and why Bangladesh represents one of the great cruelties of climate change. Those that have done little to cause the problem are paying the biggest price.
Bangladesh emits less than half of 1 percent of the global greenhouse gases that are warming the planet, but suffers disproportionately from that warming. This low-lying country has always been vulnerable to flooding, but climate change has intensified storms, pushed saltwater further inland and now driven an estimated 10 million people from their homes.
Saleemul Huq, Director, International Center For Climate Change and Development: The 170 million people in my country are the most climate-aware people in the whole world.
William Brangham:
Saleemul Huq is the director of the International Center for Climate Change And Development at the Independent University of Bangladesh. He's in Glasgow for COP 26. He's been to every one of these summits.
Does that explain all the gray hair on top of your head?
Saleemul Huq:
Indeed. Indeed. The gray hair is one indicator.
William Brangham:
Huq says the people of his country are following the talks in Scotland closely.
Saleemul Huq:
Poor people in the poor countries of the world feel the climate change problem is a problem of injustice. It's not about environment. It's not about politics. It's about rich people polluting the atmosphere and making victims of poor people, who did not pollute the atmosphere. And that's just wrong. It's immoral.
William Brangham:
One reason for that inequality is the failures of the world's richest countries to fully deliver on a promised $100 billion a year starting in 2020 to help poorer countries adapt to climate change.
While many argue that sum was far too little, the wealthier nations aren't even on track to hit that goal. In 2019, they provided about $80 billion, up only 2 percent from the year before.
Saleemul Huq:
It's not a huge amount of money. The rich countries together could have figured out how to do it, how to provide it. They didn't. Each country decided for themselves, what is my fair share of this amount? And that's it. And the rest has to come from other people.
So that, to me, is no way to run a show. You know, they were just not serious.
William Brangham:
Speaking in Glasgow last week, America's climate envoy, John Kerry, said developed nations will hit the $100 billion mark next year, but, he added:
John Kerry, U.S. Special Envoy For Climate Change:
No government in the world has enough money to effect this transition.
William Brangham:
The distribution of these funds has also been unequal. One analysis showed that, as of 2019, just 18 percent of the money in the Green Climate Fund, one of the ways these climate dollars get dispersed, went to the poorest nations. Over 60 percent went to middle-income countries, like India and Mexico.
Wavel Ramkalawan, Seychelles President:
I stand before you, fellow leaders of our nations, neither as a scientist, nor as an environmental expert, but as a citizen of our beautiful planet, and, more specifically, as an island boy facing reality.
William Brangham:
Frustrated and sometimes despairing voices from developing nations have been heard throughout COP 26.
Mohamed Nasheed, Former Maldives President:
The Maldives is challenged in — from every single corner, and it is happening, and it is happening now.
William Brangham:
Mohamed Nasheed is the former president of the Maldives, and now speaker of Parliament. Twelve years ago, to protest the damage his low-lying country was experiencing, he famously staged a cabinet meeting underwater. His country has to spend half its national budget adapting to climate change.
Mohamed Nasheed:
If the planet heats about 1.5 degrees, that's a death sentence on the people of the Maldives. The Maldives and many low-lying islands and many coastal areas will find it difficult to survive, and we will have large amounts of people on the move, many climate refugees.
And I think the instability that would create would be far worse than addressing the issue right now.
William Brangham:
Janine Felson is another veteran of these climate summits. She's the deputy head of the delegation from Belize and also the lead negotiator on climate finance for the Alliance of Small Island States.
Janine Felson, COP 26 Belize Delegation: Climate change has very, very different impacts across the globe, but for countries that are already in vulnerable situations, they are existential impacts.
These extreme events can take away years and years of what people who are already vulnerable have taken to build up. It destroys everything in its path. We're not in the same boat. We're in totally different things. We might be in a little canoe with leaky holes, but we're definitely not in the same boat.
William Brangham:
Felson says COP 26 and meetings like it, put leaders from the richest countries, the biggest emitters, face to face with the countries bearing the worst of climate change.
Janine Felson:
It's not just 44 islands speaking to major countries. I think we have the public eye on leaders. So, we're hopeful.
William Brangham:
Saleemul Huq is less optimistic about what might come from world leaders.
Saleemul Huq:
I do not have great faith in an outcome coming out from them. One reason is that outcomes depend on consensus. Nearly 200 countries all have to agree, including countries that don't want any progress. And they can hold it up, and they do hold it up.
And so whatever comes out is a very, very low common denominator, which is nowhere near what is needed.
William Brangham:
As negotiations continue over the size and shape of future aid for the developing world, people like Mohammad Nirob will continue suffering the present-day impacts of climate change.
Mohammed Nirob (Through Translator):
We face the storms, the scorching heat of the sun, rainfall, everything. The river has devoured everything. Now we are struggling to live.
William Brangham:
Judy, Nirob's wife and his four children have moved to a new house. They're a few miles inland now. He sends money to them from Dhaka when he can and tries to go visit them once a month.
Stories like his, of course, there are millions and millions of them. And the hope amongst activists here is that his story and stories like it resonate within these negotiations going on.
Judy Woodruff:
And, William, we can see so much debate over how to help, what to do about these poorer countries. But beyond this $100 billion, we understand there's an even more contentious conversation under way in Glasgow. Tell us about that.
William Brangham:
That's right, Judy.
The $100 billion discussion has been about two things primarily, mitigating against future climate change, meaning helping these countries build renewable energy projects in their countries, or adapting to future climate change, like new farming practices and things like that.
The new argument that has been pushed forward is that these countries should be paid for the loss and damages from past climate change events, so payments for something like a drought that wiped out a country's agricultural yield, or payments for things like a city being massively destroyed by a flood.
The argument that these countries make is, wealthy nations grew rich by burning, in large part, oil and gas and coal. But burning those fuels put out emissions that are now harming these countries, and that they ought to be compensated in some way for that.
As you can imagine, it's a complicated and divisive issue that has come up. But, unlike also the other climate finance money discussions, if this were to happen, this is not money that gets repaid. These would be grants or gifts. That only further complicates the issue.
Judy Woodruff:
And I'm sure a major sticking point is the size of these payments.
William, as we heard John Kerry say in your report, there's no government on Earth that could afford something of the size you're talking about.
William Brangham:
No, that's exactly right, Judy.
And in that same speech, John Kerry went on to say that simply transitioning most of the developing world to renewable energy would cost trillions of dollars. And so this is part of what this constant issue that we are hearing about mitigation and adaptation, that the refrain that we heard from many people hear is that, when a climate-related disaster hits the United States, when a hurricane hits or a flood wipes out some town, America is wealthy enough to make those people whole, to put the plumbing back, to string electrical lines back up, to make those places somewhat back to normal.
These nations cannot do that. And, yes, these costs are daunting. I mean, there's one estimate out there that, by 2050, climate-driven disasters just in the developed world could be $1 trillion to $2 trillion. So, the question is, will this actually happen here?
And while we have seen a few nations put out somewhat tepid statements saying that they're considering or they are acknowledging that this is an issue, nobody we have spoken to here really believes that this is going to be legitimately on the table by week's end.
Judy Woodruff:
One day after another, and still these debates continue.
William Brangham, reporting for us from Glasgow, and you will be there the rest of the week. Thank you, William.
William Brangham:
You're welcome, Judy.