20 Nations At High Risk From Global Warming Might Halt Debt Payments 155
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Twenty countries most vulnerable to climate change are considering halting their repayment of $685 billion in collective debt, loans that they say are an "injustice," Mohamad Nasheed, the former president of the Maldives, said on Friday. When the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund conclude their annual meetings in Washington on Sunday, Mr. Nasheed said he would tell officials that the nations were weighing whether to stop payments on their debts. The finance ministers are calling instead for a debt-for-nature swap, in which part of a nation's debt is forgiven and invested in conservation. "We are living not just on borrowed money but on borrowed time," said Mr. Nasheed, who brought global attention to his sinking archipelago nation in the Indian Ocean by holding an underwater cabinet meeting in 2009. "We are under threat, and we should collectively find a way out of it." Mr. Nasheed said poor nations were locked in a Sisyphean trap: they must borrow money to ward off rising seas and storms -- only to see disasters made worse by climate change destroy the improvements they make. But the debt remains, and often countries are left to borrow once again.
The debt discussions at the I.M.F. and World Bank meetings come as diplomats from nearly 200 countries prepared for global climate change negotiations in November. That United Nations conference, which will take place in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, will focus heavily on whether wealthy nations most responsible for the carbon dioxide emissions driving climate change should compensate poor countries that are suffering the worst impacts. Many developing countries and low-lying island nations are pressing for the creation of an international fund that would compensate them for losses and damage caused by climate change. The United States, Europe and other wealthy countries that have historically emitted the bulk of greenhouse gases have opposed the creation of such a fund, in part because they fear being held legally liable for skyrocketing disaster costs.
Mr. Nasheed said he believed focusing on a debt swap could bypass contentious debates over creating a new international fund for reparations. He also noted that many funds that have been created have gone unfilled, he said. If debts owed by countries were shaved by 30 percent and that money was instead invested in projects such as improving water systems or preserving mangrove forests that protect shorelines from hurricanes, "it would have a huge impact," Mr. Nasheed said. Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the I.M.F., said last year that such debt swaps could help developing countries address climate change and pledged to work with the World Bank to "advance that option" at the United Nations climate meeting in Egypt. According to the World Bank, 58 percent of the world's poorest countries are at risk or are in "debt distress." At the same time, the loss and damage needs for vulnerable countries are projected in one study at $290 billion to $580 billion annually by 2030. David Theis, a spokesman for the World Bank Group, said in a statement the banks were "committed to comprehensive debt solutions that bring real benefits to people in poor countries, particularly countries with high debt vulnerabilities that lack the financial resources to deal with the challenges they face."
The debt discussions at the I.M.F. and World Bank meetings come as diplomats from nearly 200 countries prepared for global climate change negotiations in November. That United Nations conference, which will take place in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, will focus heavily on whether wealthy nations most responsible for the carbon dioxide emissions driving climate change should compensate poor countries that are suffering the worst impacts. Many developing countries and low-lying island nations are pressing for the creation of an international fund that would compensate them for losses and damage caused by climate change. The United States, Europe and other wealthy countries that have historically emitted the bulk of greenhouse gases have opposed the creation of such a fund, in part because they fear being held legally liable for skyrocketing disaster costs.
Mr. Nasheed said he believed focusing on a debt swap could bypass contentious debates over creating a new international fund for reparations. He also noted that many funds that have been created have gone unfilled, he said. If debts owed by countries were shaved by 30 percent and that money was instead invested in projects such as improving water systems or preserving mangrove forests that protect shorelines from hurricanes, "it would have a huge impact," Mr. Nasheed said. Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the I.M.F., said last year that such debt swaps could help developing countries address climate change and pledged to work with the World Bank to "advance that option" at the United Nations climate meeting in Egypt. According to the World Bank, 58 percent of the world's poorest countries are at risk or are in "debt distress." At the same time, the loss and damage needs for vulnerable countries are projected in one study at $290 billion to $580 billion annually by 2030. David Theis, a spokesman for the World Bank Group, said in a statement the banks were "committed to comprehensive debt solutions that bring real benefits to people in poor countries, particularly countries with high debt vulnerabilities that lack the financial resources to deal with the challenges they face."
The USA is a wealthy nation? That's news to me (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The USA is a wealthy nation? That's news to me (Score:5, Informative)
When you and I think of borrowing, you think of "oh, I need money, I'll go and borrow from some richer person".
But US bonds are totally different. Imagine you have a trillion dollars that you want to store. Where do you put it? No good companies to buy, no bank is large enough to hold it, keeping it in a vault or under your mattress is an awful idea. So you go to the most stable country in the world and say "please let me lend this to you". Uncle Sam says "you know I really don't need it" and you say "Please, I really need to store this. I don't care about interest". So, Uncle Sam let's out a big sigh and says "fine, but the interest rate is underneath inflation, which means that we're effectively charging you for selling you a bond". And you say "fine. whatever. I'm willing to pay for you to hold onto my money as long as I get 90% of it back".
It's utterly bizarre to anyone who isn't an economist. All those US bondholders - they aren't making money from lending to uncle sam. They're using US bonds to store the value because nobody else will hold onto that much resource and be trusted to actually return most of it. the US charges for the service, and becomes even wealthier.
There are some serious advantages to being the strongest, most stable democracy on the planet.
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I think what they mean when they say "the US is the richest country", they mean that we have the most amount of economic activity (per capita with a relatively large population). We also have a great deal of wealth from other nations stored in our stock and private bonds m
Re:The USA is a wealthy nation? That's news to me (Score:5, Interesting)
Mr. Nasheed said he would tell officials that the nations were weighing whether to stop payments on their debts. The finance ministers are calling instead for a debt-for-nature swap, in which part of a nation's debt is forgiven and invested in conservation.
I don't understand this - as written, it sounds like this is what they are saying:
Maldives borrows $100M from a bank to fund an infrastructure project.
Maldives builds the infrastructure project, spending the $100M.
Time goes by, Maldives pays back $5M towards the $100M borrowed.
Now Maldives wants to "split" the debt, have half of the remaining debt be forgiven, the other half of the debt used to fund "conservation"...
WTF? You can't invest "debt"!
Is Maldives going to repay $42.5M of it's remaining $95M in debt (in the above example) to fund "conservation" or are they expecting the lender to fork over $42.5M to fund "conservation"?
I mean, Maldives spent the money and can't pay it back, so it only makes sense that they are expecting the lenders to forgive half their debt and to double-down and throw another $42.5M down a hole called "conservation".
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WTF? You can't invest "debt"!
No, you totally can [connectinvest] [connectinvest.com]
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Re:The USA is a wealthy nation? That's news to me (Score:5, Insightful)
that they are expecting the lenders to forgive half their debt
Well, the argument seems to be "the rest of the world fucks us over by causing climate change, which causes sea level rise and (possibly) more and worse tropical cyclones, so they owe us." Morally, that is a totally consistent position. If they can make it work legally, and stick, that's a different question (probably not).
But climate change will not only change coastal landscapes (and mountainous landscapes, and river valleys, and...), but also the legal landscape, both in international law and in national law. There is no doubt that e.g. CO2 emissions of one country are causing damage to other countries. What would be a just and fair way to handle that?
Re:The USA is a wealthy nation? That's news to me (Score:4, Informative)
Just and fair? I can't answer that.
What will actually happen? If they don't pay their debts, the rest will eventually be restructured and their economy will utterly collapse. This is how it normally goes.
No one is going to suck up the debt they took on to build a new palace and stuff money into their Swiss bank accounts.
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that they are expecting the lenders to forgive half their debt
Well, the argument seems to be "the rest of the world fucks us over by causing climate change, which causes sea level rise and (possibly) more and worse tropical cyclones, so they owe us."
This, exactly. They're considering the money 'lent' to them as a down payment on remediation for damages caused by AGW. And they're effectively saying "You owe us more remediation - a LOT more - but we'd rather you invest that in fixing the problem because you're in a better position to clean up the mess you've made than we are".
Speaking of responsibility and accountability, I wonder when the oil companies who knew about AGW and its likely effects as early as 1959 [greenbiz.com] might be charged with crimes against humani
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What would be a just and fair way to handle that?
Carbon credits. The USA wants to emit a lot of CO2 so good ol' boys can drive their dually 12 mpg F350s to Wal-Mart. So the USA puts a tax on carbon and remits that to nations being damaged by climate change so those nations can direct the money towards effects mitigation.
Of course that will never happen because reasons, but your question was what is a just and fair way, and carbon credits are the just and fair way.
Re: The USA is a wealthy nation? That's news to me (Score:2)
Bad idea.
It doesn't incentivise stopping the CO2 emissions, it incentivises making more money to afford them. The "fuck you, I'm rich" mentality at its finest.
This wouldn'tbe a problem if damage caused by CO2 would be completely reversible with money, but it isn't. Money just help a bit with damage control - increasingly more money for increasingly less effective damage control as we keep going on.
What we want is CO2 emissions to stop, not just to be a luxury.
Re: The USA is a wealthy nation? That's news to me (Score:3)
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That's a completely stupid and ignorant example. You completely forgot INTEREST. Maybe they borrowed $100M... but what's the interest rate on it? If they pay it off in 30 years, it's what, $300M? $500M?
Re:The USA is a wealthy nation? That's news to me (Score:5, Informative)
The fact that US bonds are _bonds_ doesn't make them any less _debt_. The US runs an annual deficit of more than a trillion dollars per year, which has added up to more than 31 trillion that yes, it must one day pay back with interest. https://usdebtclock.org/ [usdebtclock.org]
According to the US government figures, only 6 trillion of that 31 trillion are "inter-governmental holdings." The rest is held by "the public" i.e., lenders who are not part of the US government. https://fiscaldata.treasury.go... [treasury.gov]
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The US runs an annual deficit of more than a trillion dollars per year, which has added up to more than 31 trillion that yes, it must one day pay back with interest
You think? Why can't the US just keep issuing new bonds to pay off the old ones? Providing the US's "debt as a percentage of GDP" doesn't get completely out of hand, the US is unlikely to have any problems issuing new debt indefinitely.
I'm not saying that this is a great situation for the US to be in, but short of huge spending cuts and/or tax increases, the US national debt is going nowhere.
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I understand that it's possible, but relatively few US citizens care about US debt. Anyone who runs for POTUS on a cut spending/raise taxes platform is going to lose.
There is currently no political will to carry out your plan.
Re:The USA is a wealthy nation? That's news to me (Score:4, Insightful)
US Citizens don't care now because the consequences are still vague and sometime in the future. But the consequences will one day come, and then they will care, but it will be too late.
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To give an example - If you held a referendum with 2 choices:
1) Cut the national debt by 1%
2) Every American gets a stimulus check for $1,000
Which option do you think most people would choose? (1% of the national debt is $300B ($30T/100). Per capita, that 1% works out as $1,000 per person ($300B / 300M))
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Re: The USA is a wealthy nation? That's news to me (Score:2)
Taxing sufficiently is the problem. A third of budget comes from inflation/printing mostly paid by the middle class, cause they have money but they are not as good at tax dodging and inflation avoidance as the elite.
Actually taking that out of their purses directly with taxes is political suicide, only a socialist government which at the same time fucked the elite with even more tax increases would have a chance at electoral victory. That would be literal suicide though.
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Re: The USA is a wealthy nation? That's news to m (Score:2)
Most of the spending is Medicare, military, and Medicaid. Which do you cut first?
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It's kind of like using WinDirStat to clean up a bloated hard drive. You look for two kinds of things:
- Really big folders (expenses) that can be eliminated
- Small files (expenses) that occur zillions of times, that can be eliminated or reduced
In any budget the size of the US budget, there is *always* room for optimization. It's hard work, and politically unpopular, but it can be done.
But one fact remains. If income doesn't exceed expenses, you will run a deficit. That's the cold, hard truth. If Medicare, M
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Oh I agree, I'm just saying, there are only 3 dials that can meaningfully reduce the current US budget (4 with social security). And all are 3rd rails politically.
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It's not "just" cutting spending, or "just" increasing taxes. To balance, income must exceed expenses. It's that simple. You can fix it by increasing income, or reducing expenses, or both.
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There are always two ways to balance one's budget, whether it's a nation, a state, or a person's budget. Increase income, or decrease expenses. There are no other options. It's not "just" taxing sufficiently, but that is certainly half of the problem.
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I'll agree with out current debt to GDP ratio it is possible. I'll dispute the easily done part.
In 2021 we took in about 4T in revenue and spent 7T. I suspect an actual 30%+ reduction in spending, consider a good portion of that IS the debt service, or a 30%+ expansion of revenue is easy.
Conservatives always want to slash and burn spending (except for their pork projects), as if doing it all at once would not cause major economically-crippling dislocations. Liberals in this country always want to squeeze t
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Too bad we don't have a fiscally conservative party anymore. What passes for "fiscal conservativism" nowadays among Republicans is just knee jerk "if a Democrat proposed it then I'm against it" like the Democrats infrastructure bill from a bit ago that both parties has been saying for years was necessary (and was even part of Trumps platform when he as elected) but the Republicans refused to negotiate with Democrats on so it got passed without them. Modern Republicans have no qualms about spending massive s
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Providing the US's "debt as a percentage of GDP" doesn't get completely out of hand
And therein lies the rub. What does it mean to be "out of hand?" It would be more accurate to say "debt payments as a percentage of GDP" don't get unserviceable. In the past year, 10yr notes have gone from 1.5 to 4%. What will that do to debt payments as those notes are re-issued?
Re: The USA is a wealthy nation? That's news to me (Score:2)
It must be repaid, but only by rolling it over.
Just like that total government debt will never go down again.
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It is interesting. Back before the Iraq war (2003ish), it seems like the total debt that the US was carrying was around 2 trillion dollars. When I was younger, it wasn't even a trillion dollars total. Now, the annual deficit itself is a trillion dollars.
I don't see how this ends up well. There must be an end to the madness surrounding economics... I just wonder what the end game is. It can not last much longer. The poor people that I know are all at the end of their rope. Will there be a mass die off of the
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Here's a chart [thebalancemoney.com]. In 2003, the debt was $7 trillion and 59% of GDP. Currently it's $31 trillion and 123% of GDP.
It seems clear that the absolute level of debt doesn't matter, what matters is the percentage of GDP. This percentage has also increased (by a smaller factor - roughly 2x), which seems like a potential issue but I'm not enough of an economist to say how much of an issue.
The debt percentage hasn't risen smoothly - rather it jumped from 62% to 95% during the Great Recession, then from 107% to 129% dur
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I am old enough to remember when economists were seriously concerned that if the US started running too much of a surplus there might not be enough US debt in circulation and it would destabilize international markets.
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Well, you have money, don't you? Most Americans are the world's 1%. In fact the lifestyle gap between median and one-percenter in the US is worse than the gap between world median and American. The median per-capita income of humans is $2920 per year. How much do you make? Now here's the other thing, the gap between lifestyle of a billionaire and the average American is not as bad as the gap between an average American and a world median human. For one thing, a world median human does not even own a car. Th
Re:The USA is a wealthy nation? That's news to me (Score:5, Informative)
Most Americans are the world's 1%.
That is a lie, and you are a liar [cnbc.com] (as usual.) 19% of Americans are in the world's 1%, for those interested in facts and not the deliberate lies of a known troll.
It's true that poor people in other countries look up to relatively poor people in the USA, but the number of truly poor people in this country is growing daily in response to the efforts of people like you to minimize them and pretend they don't exist.
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I really don't need nationalist socialist front organization members spewing false BS to counteract my 100% valid and true points. I may have been off on some statistical BS that was irrelevant to my main point, which is that you, personally, are hoarding a disgusting amount of money and resources compared to a typical sub-Saharan African. If you are justified in being mad at someone who is "wealthy" in the US, then an African is equally, if not more, justified in being mad at you. There is no way around th
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In my opinion, "having more wealth than I do" is no justification at all for anger. "Preventing me from having what I want," on the other hand, is more justified.
If America vanished from the face of the earth, the wealth levels of those sub-Saharan Africans you mention wouldn't budge. Whatever wealth Americans have would just get hoovered right up by the wealthy members of other countries, and the relative proportions would all stay the same. This is because poverty is an artifact of the natural tendency
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This is because poverty is an artifact of the natural tendency to form dominance hierarchies at all, NOT an artifact of any particular group who happens to be high up on that hierarchy.
Dominance hierarchies cannot explain while the poor in the US and other first world countries are better off than the poor and even the middle-class in third world countries.
Re:The USA is a wealthy nation? That's news to me (Score:4, Insightful)
Because the US median income is $44k. For comparison, the world median income is ~$1k. Source: https://www.smartcapitalmind.c... [smartcapitalmind.com]
Once you get past $10k median income, your country is doing well. The national debt has nothing to do with it.
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Re: The USA is a wealthy nation? That's news to me (Score:2)
Can someone please explain how a country with over 31 trillion dollars of debt can be classified as a "wealthy nation"?
Sure.
It's because they still find the money to entertain the world's most expensive military - so expensive in fact that it surpasses the next 20 or militaries on the list combined.
There. Glad I could help.
Reclamation vastly exceeds sea level rise (Score:5, Interesting)
These Landsat images [nasa.gov] from 1997 and 2020 show how land reclamation projects in the Maldives have added 4 square kilometers of land on the coral island of Hulhumale. The new island stands twice as high as the rest of the island -- 2 meters higher. This has lead to a population explosion, from 50,000 residents to 200,000.
So, let's do some back of the envelope arithmetic. Sea level rise is historically 3-5 mm per year, that's been the trend as measured by tidal gauges since we started measuring it in the 1870s (way before the automobile). Adding 2 additional meters of reclaimed land is 2,000 mm. That gives this Maldives coral island another 400-600 years of use, very roughly speaking.
Yes, sea level rise is "a thing", you can go to any ocean port and look up the tidal gauge history. What you do about it is adapt to the change. In 23 years they added 600 years' worth of land use. That's pretty awesome.
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What you're calling reclaimed land is more just the effects of drought. You're putting a cherry on a shit Sundae.
You're also ignoring the massive refugee crisis that's going to result from that. We're not going to just pay to resettle people all the damn time.
You're getting talking points from people trying to prevent
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I would challenge you to look at the Landsat images and then re-read your comment. This is not "just the effects of drought". The Maldives are coral islands in the South Pacific, for one thing. For another, the new islands are manufactured, that
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We're not going to build enough artificial Islands to make up all the land or about to lose in Florida.
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Well, "manufactured" in the sense that we had to build the retaining walls and dredge the materials, and "reclaimed" in the sense that the low-lying areas of that island group were filled in and raised up 2 meters, which enabled people to actually build on what was previously under water.
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Re: Reclamation vastly exceeds sea level rise (Score:2, Informative)
Exactly. If you want to protect an island from sea level rise, the way to do it is pretty straightforward:
1. Build a concrete seawall.
2. Bury it under an artificial dune stabilized below with geotextile fabric, and above by something like sea oats.
3. Set up draglines (basically, cranes on tank treads with scoops at the end).
4. Dig a trench offshore (or deep finger canals inland), and dump the excavated rock, coral, and dirt on the low terrain on the other side of the artificial dune to turn it into new high
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Aside form the fact that sea level rise is accelerating already and the data clearly shows that, the upheaval will be devastating for those countries. People have homes and businesses, farming land, that will be underwater. Moving to newly reclaimed land, having lost much of their wealth, and trying to live on the poor quality soil and at a much higher population density than before... Well, it's not going to be easy.
Many of them won't do it, they will instead try to move to other countries. They will becom
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This is not so, the data does not show that. Look at this trend of sea level rise [noaa.gov] as measured in the New York harbor starting in 1870. The trend line is completely unchanged over all that time.
What sea level is not is identical in all places, and that makes it a bit more difficult to compare apples to oranges. Sea level is a relative measurement of the water line compared to the land. Sometimes the land is s
Re:Reclamation vastly exceeds sea level rise (Score:5, Informative)
Here are graphs for the global average, not just one cherry picked location.
https://www.epa.gov/climate-in... [epa.gov]
https://i.stack.imgur.com/AXho... [imgur.com]
https://royalsociety.org/topic... [royalsociety.org]
https://www.eea.europa.eu/ims/... [europa.eu]
As you can see, there is a clear curve upwards as sea level rise accelerates. We are not reaching the point where a lot of ice is melting, so it's going to keep accelerating.
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Even the second link that actually has a perfectly straight line on it so you can see the curvature up and away from said straight line?
May be time to see an optician.
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None are so blind as the one whose livelihood depends on not seeing.
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New York is interesting, but ...
When averaged over all of the world’s oceans, absolute sea level has risen at an average rate of 0.06 inches per year from 1880 to 2013. Since 1993, however, average sea level has risen at a rate of 0.12 to 0.14 inches per year—roughly twice as fast as the long-term trend. [epa.gov]
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Sea level rise is historically 3-5 mm per year, that's been the trend as measured by tidal gauges since we started measuring it in the 1870s (way before the automobile).
Between 1901 and 2018, the globally averaged sea level rose by 15–25 cm or 1.3-2.1 mm/year [www.ipcc.ch]. It rose 7.5 cm from 1993 to 2017, or 3.1 mm/year [copernicus.org]. That acceleration is more important that the average.
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3-5 mm/yr as an historical average is what NASA uses, and I think that's close enough for the kind of back-of-the-envelope calculations we're describing. Obviously, as previously stated, there is a lot of variation year to year and location to location. Talking about a "global" average of the relative level of water to land is eliding over so much detail as it is.
From a practical point of view, it's enough to inform construction projects in places where sea level rise is going to be an issue. It gained the
It's the second derivative. (Score:2)
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Sea level rise is not uniform. As an example, if Greenland all melted, the sea level there would drop as currently all that ice has mass, which means gravity, pulling the ocean up. If the sea level in the N Atlantic drops, it will go up somewhere else.
Re: Reclamation vastly exceeds sea level rise (Score:2)
Who the fuck modded this insightful? It doesn't even pass the laughing test.
We'll be having an increase if 1m or more by the end of this century. 5 meters or so during next two centuries. This was literally the 1st link in my search. [nasa.gov]
Give us money (Score:4, Informative)
The usual refrain, just a different excuse: "Give us money". Of course, for most of those countries, any money they receive lands largely in corrupt pockets.
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Or lenders might start to look at these countries as bad loan risks if they don't want to stick to the loan contracts & terms they agreed to.
Same sorts of repayment disagreements that took place when Russia said, "You shall now pay in roubles only" instead of the agreed upon currencies.
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I bet they go right back to lending to Russia when the war is over. They can't help themselves.
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I bet they go right back to lending to Russia when the war is over. They can't help themselves.
Once the sanctions go away, you are probably right. After all, banks are in business to make money by lending money.
If Russia looks like viable credit risk (perhaps with secured collateral...just to protect the bank's "investment"), then banks will lend money.
When it comes to lending money, banks are not that much different than gamblers. If the odds look good, and the bet looks safe, and the prospects of a good ROI are present, then banks will lend money to almost anyone.
Consider the long history of the Me
Careful what u wish 4 (Score:2)
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Out of curiosity, who do you think guaranteed all those third-world loans? The lenders will expect the folks that guaranteed the loans to make them whole... So who do you think guaranteed those loans? Why YOU, silly! Your elected officials got all the accolades for giving them money to build an infrastructure, and your governments stood behind the reluctant bankers and said "make the loan, we've got your back!"
Banks didn't just decide to give these countries money - someone made them do it, and is o
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You can name a country where it ain't that way?
Re: Give us money (Score:3, Interesting)
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The problem is these countries are sufficiently hit by the economic fallout from climate change that they can't service the debt. If we don't pay the threat is there that will go there and collect militarily. And that sounds fine, God knows we
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Do you realize you are a multi-millionaire compared to a sub-saharan African, yet all you do is exploit them.
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This "starving kids in China" bullshit needs to stop. Millionaires have economic security. They get to keep living under a roof and eating if they stop working. I'm a member of the American class. If I stop working I die. Maybe I get to eek out a living for a few years until the hard living catches up with me, but that's no different than folks in Africa.
Americans need to realize how well and truly fuck
Military threat - nah (Score:2)
'If we don't pay the threat is there that will go there and collect militarily.'
That hasn't happened since the 19th century, when the UK took over Egypt over unpaid debt. These days we just leave defaulters to rot, as Lebanon is most blatantly experiencing at the moment, or have the IMF help them establish a sensible way forward.
Sure it has (Score:2)
Look up Coca Cola Death Squads sometime. or the origin of the term "Banana Republic". Or dig into what we're doing to Venezuela & Cuba. or what we did and do in the middle east. We use violence, we're just not so obvious about it.
The debt isn't there to extract interest, it's there to force the country to do what w
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My biggest problem with this is if you look at the V20 website it's almost like a who's who of countries that support the likes of Russia in at least abstaining from condemning their invasion of Ukraine.
So my question is, why the fuck, if they don't care what happens to the West when we have a war on our doorstep and actively encourage the aggressor, would the West give the slightest fuck if they sink into the ocean?
What's in it for us in forgiving their debt and helping them stay afloat? Why should we care
Developed countries are not entirely to blame (Score:3, Insightful)
Pollution and CO2 production is not just caused by use of fossil fuels by countries - it's also a consequence of population growth, and increased population has a continuing impact on pollution and global warming in the future.
Population growth for many of the poorer countries of the world has far outstripped population growth in wealthier countries, largely as a consequence of better access to food and medicine which has been made possible by technology, medicine and aid from more developed countries.
For example, from 1900 to 2020, US population has increased 3.5x from 76m to 270m but Bangladesh population increased 6.3x, from 26m to 164m,
Africa's population increased 10x from 140m to 1.4b.
This should also be taken into consideration when calculating responsibility for global warming, both past and future.
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The TFR (births per woman) in the Maldives is 1.8, well below replacement level.
Re: Developed countries are not entirely to blame (Score:2)
That is below replacement level , but much higher than reduce-the-population-to-a-size-which-can-be-efficiently-supported level.
Re: Developed countries are not entirely to blame (Score:2)
According to biologists earth population overall is going to flatten somewhere around 12 bn or so. That's not a problem to support.
It will be a problem to support everybody's greed, though.
Re: (Score:2)
Pollution and CO2 production is not just caused by use of fossil fuels by countries - it's also a consequence of population growth
No, that's either a totally clueless interpretation of reality or a willfully ignorant take created to defend fossil fuel companies. Increase of fossil fuel use by countries is in response to population growth, but it's the increase in fossil fuel use that causes the increase in CO2 production. If the rest of the world would quit being so fucking greedy all the time we could get developing nations onto cleaner forms of power, and they could grow their populations without growing their CO2 emissions.
Of cours
Ok... (Score:2)
Global warming or not, defaulting hurts (Score:5, Informative)
When a nation defaults on its debt obligations, creditors stop lending to that nation. It doesn't matter if the reason for the default was global warming. Lenders lend to gain a return, and when that return is in doubt, lenders won't lend. Nations that default on their debt often experience hyperinflation and other serious economic harm.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, you're absolutely correct. Investors are mostly unaware of where the money goes outside of the credit scores and repayment terms. However, you're stating the unpopular viewpoint, so prepare to be blasted by the mods.
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't matter if the reason for the default was global warming.
Actually reasons do matter. Economic and human activism is a thing which does affect lending decisions. It's the reason why a large portion of climate change activism is currently directed at banks.
Yeah someone is bad or good for what they do with money, but more and more we see financiers bowing to pressure about who and more importantly *why* they are lending the money. You don't make a positive name for yourself by letting a nice holiday destination sink into the ocean or for having yet another forest ri
Re: (Score:2)
In the end, if a loan isn't paid back, it's no longer a loan, but a grant (or a write-off). Sure, activism matters. But there is only so much grant money to go around, and it's certainly not enough to cover all sovereign debts of nations affected by global warming. Activism has its limits, and compared to the problem, will barely touch iit.
Re: (Score:2)
If you are a creditor to a nation that sinks into the ocean, you get nothing.
Creditors accept less than par all the time because it is better to get something rather than nothing. In particular, it is in a creditor's interest to allow present debt service to be redirected if it will plausibly expand the ability to service future debt service.
Re: (Score:2)
If the lenders are for profit companies, what you say is true.
But if the lenders are other countries, they don't necessarily need to make a profit and they can (and have on occasion been known to) write off debts for whatever other reasons.
Difficult decision. (Score:2)
Before the student-loan scam (Score:2)
On the one hand, this is the deal they made and the banks want their pound of flesh. On the other, this is a student-loan scam: Economically incompetent and poverty-stricken customers being sold a questionable product with the promise they can spend their way into the Millionaire's Club.
Plus, governments "alter the deal", just like a Nigerian Prince scam, promising that a little more spending means all the borrower's dreams come true. Maybe the borrowers should alter the deal.
Re:Before the student-loan scam (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other, this is a student-loan scam: Economically incompetent and poverty-stricken customers being sold a questionable product with the promise they can spend their way into the Millionaire's Club.
Your low opinion of folks that take out student loans is noted.
The vast majority of borrowers understand what they are doing and repay their loans. The difference now is we have politicians, drunk on power, telling appointed officials to "write-off" a half-trillion in student debt because they are afraid they might lose power after the mid-term election.
Re: (Score:2)
We tell the kids that they should get a degree because it will enhance their career prospects and be worth every penny. The kids are literally kids, 17 and 18 year olds being told to make huge decisions that will affect the rest of their lives. Can't really blame them for believing the older generations, especially when a degree worked out pretty well for boomers and gen X.
Thing is, we do need a highly skilled workforce, and we do need universities doing R&D. Many countries recognize that and make unive
Re: (Score:2)
Over the same period as the US$1.9T student loan crisis developed, the value of education decreased, as the price of education increased. Jobs you used to be able to get with no degree started requiring one. Jobs you used to be able to get with a two year degree started requiring a four year degree; jobs you used to be able to get with a BA now require a Masters. Meanwhile degrees you used to be able to get for a few thousand jumped to tens of thousands, and so on. And the prices were raised in response to
Of course it's all about foreign bank accounts (Score:2)
The story of the Mozambican loan for fishing boats - 'know what I mean' - is classic.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world... [bbc.com]
Sadly one suspects that the only thing that's unusual is that it came to public notice.
iow (Score:2)
"Heavily indebted nations find new excuse not to pay bills, hope other countries and imf 'buy it this time'."
So...stop giving them money? See how that works out.
Follow the money (Score:2)
Big Green is all about the money and more accurately, attempting to bestow value upon that which has no value.
That's the risk. Live with it. (Score:2)
If a country can't make its debt payments because changes in climate have damaged its ability to produce the goods needed to fund them, then that's that.
Stein's Law. "If something can't go on forever, it will stop."
Or, to go old school, "You can't get blood from a stone.
Not what you want to hear (Score:3)
Thinking about this, If I were to claim my home and my career as being impacted negatively by climate change, would that obviate me from paying my mortgage and property taxes? If my career is interrupted by climate change, can I not pay the IRS?
Duping nations into debt is like these lenders charging eye-watering usury rates on C and D credit risks.