Leaders Melting, Bush Lost

Hat tip Sydney Indymedia

MakePovertyHistory Australia carted ice sculptures of George Bush and John Howard around Sydney to melt today to highlight their alternative vision for APEC: Building a Sustainable Future Free from Extreme Poverty: Priorities for APEC (40-page pdf)

Make Poverty History co-chair, Andrew Hewett, makes the connection:

It is a moral challenge, because those least responsible for causing the problem – the poorest people in the poorest countries of the world – will overwhelmingly pay the highest price as climate change begins to bite. If Australia is serious about being a global leader as chair of APEC, we must do three things. First, join the rest of the international community in ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. Second, commit to deep cuts in greenhouse pollution. And third, support the efforts of our neighbours and developing country partners in APEC to adapt to climate change and reduce poverty in an environmentally sustainable way.

It is clear that climate change is affecting the lives of the poorest people in our world. The monsoon season in our region and in South Asia has become shorter and more intense over the last decade, and so we can expect to see more people displaced by the kind of flooding we see right now in India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh. Crops are failing in the face of increasing temperatures and changing rainfall patterns. Millions of the poorest people in sub-Saharan Africa
face water shortages. And sea level rise could potentially displace millions of people from small island nations in the Pacific, and low-lying coastal countries, over the next few decades.

If we don’t get serious about tackling climate change, we won’t be talking about making poverty history, we’ll be making it permanent.

In other news from Sydney, surprise! W doesn’t even know where he is. In front of business leaders on Friday:

Thank you for being such a fine host for the OPEC summit . . . .

His recovery was lamer still, if that is possible.

As I type this, Radio Australia is playing Pink’s Dear Mr. President, something I have never heard them play before.