Island States Shouldn't Have to Pay for Australian Prime Minister's High-Carbon "Lifestyle Choice"

[marmar]

(Truthout) As Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott surveys the wreckage of Vanuatu in the wake of Cyclone Pam, he would do well to think hard about how his high-carbon "lifestyle choice" for Australia contributes to the tragedy - a situation in which most of the island nations' population have been left homeless.

Having stoked outrage last week when he suggested the Australian government should not "endlessly subsidize the lifestyle choices" of Aboriginal people, Vanuatu now demonstrates why Abbott would have done us all a favor by instead applying this misplaced logic to his dangerous stance on climate change.

For in his conclusion about paying your way for costly "preferences," he could just as easily be driving home the case for why neither Australians nor vulnerable small island nations like Vanuatu (and The Bahamas, where I am from) should be put on the hook financially for the policy decisions of the Abbott government.

Taxpayers in developing countries like mine, already facing a myriad of complex challenges, cannot easily afford to respond to the disastrous and well-documented externalities created by the high-carbon growth strategy that Abbott irrationally clings to. ..........................(more)

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/29783-small-island-states-like-vanuatu-shouldn-t-have-to-pay-for-abbott-s-high-carbon-lifestyle-choice