Why Some Activists Want To Postpone This Year’s Big Climate Summit
HuffPost
Low vaccination rates in poor countries and onerous quarantines risk tilting 2021's U.N. climate talks further in rich nations' favor. Advocates worry th...
It’s one of the most tragic ironies of climate change: Poor countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America that have contributed the least amount of planet-warming gases to the atmosphere face the gravest threats of drought, extreme heat and chaotic storms in a changed climate.
Now those same nations struggle to stock enough coronavirus vaccines to inoculate their populations against COVID-19 and its growing list of infectious variants. Many fear they won’t be able to attend the world’s most important climate summit, further stacking the deck in favor of the countries that grew rich burning coal and oil.
Nearly 1,600 international nonprofits are calling on the United Nations to postpone November’s 26th Conference of the Parties, or COP26, until early next year, when more of the world’s population will be fully vaccinated against the deadly disease.
