Lifting the burden?

Yesterday morning, Christian Aid partners from India, Burkina Faso and Tajikistan presented delegates from the developed nations with an invoice for $150 billion - an estimate of how much damage climate change has already done to communities across the developing world. Sathish Samuel from India said: 'Developing countries are taking the burden. We want justice and hope that something will come out of Copenhagen.'

That afternoon, the contents of a secret draft document entitled 'Copenhagen accords', that had been circulating among representatives of some of the richest nations, were leaked to a UK newspaper. To the outrage of delegates from the developing world, the document appears to want to shift the financial burden of climate change onto developing countries. The chief negotiator of the G77 group of developing countries described this as 'a major violation which threatens the success of the Copenhagen negotiations'.

It doesn't look as though the burden of climate change will be lifted from poor countries any time yet. Quite the opposite: it seems that some of the world's richest countries simply want to add to it.