The Filthy Rich Owe the Poor Billions

The world's industrial economies and their banks like to obsess about "Third World debt" but a report by the British charity Christian Aid argues that it's really the rich countries that are indebted to the poor.

That's because, Christian Aid's Andrew Simms explains, Third World debt is "dwarfed by the huge and rising carbon debt owed by rich countries to the global community." In its report "Who Owes Who?" Christian Aid observes that the world's rich nations "are using more than their fair share of the climate, and adding more to the damaging effects of global warming."

Under a popular "pollution trading" plan, rich countries are allowed to emit greenhouse gases by purchasing clean-air credits from poor countries that are not fouling the air. Christian Aid estimates that these poor countries have accumulated credits worth $612 billion, which would more than wipe out their $200 billion in unpaid debts to the world's financial lenders.

"Each day the industrialized countries delay action on the 60-80 percent cuts that are needed, they go over budget," the report states. The US currently uses 12 times the allowable amount of carbon per person.

By comparing dollars-of-economic- output to kilograms-of-fossil-fuels- burned, the report determined that poor countries are the world's "most economic users of energy." The least-developed countries "are nearly twice as efficient as all the industrialized countries combined."

By linking issues of debt and climate change, Christian Aid has come to a remarkable conclusion: "Rich-country demands for debt repayment from [poor] countries are illegitimate… and therefore should be cancelled." Rich countries argue that global pollution quotas should reflect the size of their economies, not the size of populations. Christian Aid responds: "You cannot argue for one person's right… to claim a larger share of the world's natural resources than any other. Our survival depends on equity. The North has a case to answer."