The BBC’s Tim Weber is in Davos, listening to Al Gore and Bono search together for the Holy Grail – a policy framework that can integrate development and climate objectives. Now read on…
Mr Gore and Bono have been discussing these issues since last October, bringing together aid experts and climate scientists in a series of 8 sessions and workshops. [But] while they have identified the issue, and sort of have identified an answer, they are still short of a solution.
Al Gore once again called for a revenue neutral way of putting a price on the cost of carbon, where the negative impact of carbon is added to its price, and the tax revenue is used to release money elsewhere. Bono, for his part, demanded an “adaptation fund”, programmes that would provide “social protection for farmers and prepares them for floods”. Education was the second tool, he said, because “providing people with a chance” was the best albeit “counter-intuitive way of controlling the growth of population”.
But was that the promised “unified earth theory”?
Somebody shoot me, please. I mean, Al, Bono, thanks for ringing the alarm bell and everything, but please, if the pair of you still don’t have a development-climate synthesis that extends beyond vague murmurings about carbon tax and aid volume, couldn’t you just, like, take a bow? I mean, if climate safety demands a safe global emissions budget, but developing countries want equity and the right to develop their economies, and need finance for development too, don’t you think you could make that little jump to… Well, you’re bright guys; go figure it out. It’s not rocket science.
