The Mix: Global Climate Aid Policy

This week on the Mix, Jake Schmidt, international climate policy director at NRDC, actress and environmental advocate Daryl Hannah, and climate scientist Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama discuss whether the United States should provide funding to developing nations for climate change adaptation and green technology.

Schmidt believes the U.S. and other developed countries have the responsibility for leading on the issue. He says developing countries need help on those issues. He doesn't believe the U.S. should have a sense of guilt, but he believes it's in America's best interests to help the world solve this issue. Schmidt hopes that Spencer is right about ocean pH changing very little, but says if Spencer is wrong, there will be catastrophic consequences.

Hannah believes the United States owes a historical debt to countries that she believes it has taken advantage of for ages. She believes the best way to pay that would be for America, itself, to get off fossil fuels and develop renewables. She believes oceans have become 30 percent more acidic, posing a threat to the world's coral reefs. She does not believe people should wait to solve problems created by climate change, and it only makes sense to wean ourselves off fossil fuels immediately. Hannah also does not favor corn ethanol subsidies because she believes corn is an inefficient means of making ethanol. She would like to see a paradigm shift in the way the country uses energy.

Spencer says the U.S. has no responsibility to transfer its wealth, but it should encourage emerging countries to develop their own economies so they can take control of their own resources. He also does not believe the U.S. should pay other nations to refrain from cutting down their forests. He disagrees with Hannah's assertion on ocean acidification, saying the scientific evidence he's seen suggests the ocean pH has changed very little. He believes that climate change and dwindling fossil fuel resources are short-term issues. He says the world should have insurance polices against catastrophic climate change, but not if they are too expensive. Spencer believes ethanol subsidies are an example of a failed policy that was enacted as a rushed, forced solution to climate change issues.