Secretary-General of the UN Ban Ki-moon identified the organizations priorities for for

the year during an address to the UN General Assembly. He identified his primary
focus Climate Change, rather than the UN’s historical pledge to combat global
poverty. This has, and will be, the statement precursor for the general direction of the
UN in 2010.

Harmless. Right?

No, it will mean the difference between hundreds of billions of dollars,

trillions into the future

and far more valuable lives.

But UN processes are not inflexible. With political pressure, this may well be revoked.

Jaqueline Balkenende, the Dutch climate change official and environmental minister later
cautioned the general assembly measures aimed at countering climate change could be
harmful to the worlds poor, after finding that some projects for the United Nations Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM) had violated human rights. This is in no way
acceptable.

There have been a number of prominent examples. Local populations from developing
nations are sometimes displaced to clear land for tree-planting projects by the foreign
nations who intend to offset emissions from their own power plants. Investments in crop-
based biofuels, primarily from the West have had disastrous implications of the
availability of food.

The United Nations needs to prioritize the imminent crisis of global poverty over the
threat of climate change. It cannot do both effectively. The scientific evidence behind
climate change is overwhelming, but this economic debate must take its course. Rational
thoughts should no longer be allowed to be the weapons of irrational minds. As citizens
of a representative democracy we are each morally apprehensible in this issue. Our nation
expects us to form the an informed and up to date opinion.

Let us make Australia proud.

We are each at the doorstep of the voting age, when we will begin to play a more direct
role in Australians future and through Australia’s relatively influential position in the
world, we each have a stake in the operations of the UN. Issues of international
governance are equally relevant to us in particular than to say, the governance of your
local members of parliament.

The deal-breaker at Copenhagen was the conflict between the rich and poor countries
over the ‘additionality’ of funding ‘Additionally’ means that finance provided to help
developing countries deal with climate change is entirely on top of the aid sums they
receive from the rich West to help them with their development – with agriculture,
poverty relief, health and education. Oxfam's Robert Bailey said that: “poor countries fear
that, without this guarantee, when the rich states have to start providing huge sums of
compensation money under climate treaties, they will simply divert their aid flows, and
that money that once went to schools and hospitals will be switched, for example, to wind
farms” The United Nations prioritizations are so very relevant. The welfare of people
should not be in competition with environmental concerns.

The green line that the world’s poor are on the same side as the environmental activists is
slowly being revealed as false.

They clearly are not.

In July 2009, the World Food Programme reported that it has been forced to cut services
because of insufficient funding. It has received barely a quarter of the total it needs for
the 09/10 financial year.

For developing countries, climate change and other environmental strategies that retard
economic development are unacceptable. They scored this into UN orthodoxy at the Rio
Earth summit in 1992. They executed the principle when they emasculated the Kyoto
Protocol by insisting only rich countries cut emissions.

The failure at Copenhagen was not the result of greater influence of developing countries.
It was a failure, yet again, of green activists and environmental officials in rich countries
to understand the position of developing countries and the political implications of their
stance.

Poverty directly effects more humans than climate change could. Furthermore, it is
a more urgent crisis. Global poverty plagues nearly half of the world's population,
where it is the cause of extreme suffering, malnutrition, and even death. Global climate
change, conversely, may not have such a substantially negative effect on the world's
population, standards of living, health, and survival. It is far more likely to simply force
humans and societies to adapt. Other issues of greater importance carry the consequence
of.. death. You cannot adapt to death. Climate Change will certainly cause major
problems around the world, and increased suffering for some, but climate is not as likely
to have as significant of an effect as poverty already has around the world.. Global
poverty is having an extremely deleterious impact now.

Poverty spreads diseases more than climate change could. Philip Stevens, a physician
and journalist in publication titled: "Poverty: The Real Threat to Health". May 15, 2009
wrote: -Wear Moustache- "the relationship between climate and disease is weaker than
claimed. Earlier, the CSIRO detailed at length how climate change would affect
Australia.[say satirically] Quote:: “a 10% increase in the incident of diarreogh amongst
aboriginal Australians may be expected” No Joke. They also mentioned that there would
be more water on our beaches and bays. Seriously, water on our beaches, man up
Australia, nobody cares. ….and their arguments on the health related aspects of Climate
Change ignores the vast range of human and ecological factors that surround disease. The
same report which forms the basis for most of the health related legislation derived from
expected climate change in Australia has recently been denounced in parallel to the IPCC
– the UN’s bible on climate issue, from that shameful Himalayan glacier tale. The, for all
its bureaucratic flaws and operational redundancies in regards to climate governance,
remains the preeminent international body on efforts to alleviate poverty.. Over the last
twenty years the institution has amassed unparalleled knowledge and expertise which
should not be rebuffed.

It’s shocking that desperate researchers are beginning to rely on alarmist theories as they
vie for funding

UN mission: Is the UN's mission better for fighting poverty or climate change?

UN is more obligated to the poor and human welfare than climate. The United
Nations, as an organization, is more bound to human welfare than to the environment.
Considering that poverty is currently, and for the foreseeable future, the greatest road-
block to human welfare, the UN should continue to prioritize this field of work over other
endeavors such as solving climate change. And, when efforts to fight climate change may
worsen poverty, the UN should prioritize the former.

The UN has a special responsibility to the poor. The United Nations is a body whose
greatest impact has been helping the poor, mitigating conflict, and protecting innocent
civilians during conflict. In general, its mission has evolved to be more of a humanitarian
organization than a global governance body. It should make an effort to live up to this
mission by prioritizing poverty over climate change, when the two come into conflict.

Economics: Can the UN have a greater impact on poverty than climate change?

UN money will go further in fighting poverty than climate change. UN money can go
straight to the poor in the form of aid, directly addressing a clear human need. Money that
goes toward the problem of climate change, does not have such a direct return-on-human-
need as the effects on human needs are very indirect (protecting humans from changes in
temperature and the possibility of negative effects in the future).. Because poverty
reduction entails lower risks and more direct bang-for-buck, the UN should prioritize it
over climate change.

It is better that the UN focus its attention and limited resources on issues it can affect,
such as poverty, where there is a bigger bang-for-buck and lower risks of wasting trillions
of dollars on a lost cause.

Politics: Is poverty reduction more politically feasible than fighting climate change?

India's objections in 2009 to mandatory carbon emission targets are a good example of
the conflict between the climate and human welfare, where it argued that meeting these
targets would impair its development and poverty reduction efforts. Clearly, there are
times when environmental aims have economic costs, and where the UN must prioritize
poverty reduction or climate change. Poverty reduction is the international communities .
We have enough humanity to not demand of our neighbors and friends to sacrifice the
economic well being, health, and even survival of their people.

Security: Which is a greater priority for international security?

Poverty is a greater threat to peace than climate change. Global poverty is the direct cause
of illiteracy, misunderstandings, discontentment, tensions, and conflict. It creates the
conditions for revolutions, guerrilla warfare, gang warfare, desperation among
exacerbated governments, and nodes of tension that can lead to both civil war and
international military confrontations. It is not clear that climate change could have such a
negative effect on global stability and peace. The only way that climate change could
have such impacts is by simply worsening poverty and the cycle of violence and conflict
that result. Yet, systemic poverty is the main culprit of international insecurity, and
should be prioritized by the UN for this reason.

Zealots have short life spans when the cost and impracticality of what they urge becomes
apparent. Only now are the costs of their climate change plans becoming apparent. If
Copenhagen was not a climate change epiphany for Western leaders, they will never be
able to envisage a practical global strategy to reduce climate change.

Do not let the stupid sheep that constitutes the world outside out class room pressure
leaders towards more radical pursuits. In tandem with their Machiavellian self interests,
the combination, as demonstrated in Copenhagen, was and will be destined for only one
station aboard the fail train. Failure.

The United Nations should prioritize combating global poverty over combating climate
change. Remember what that environmental eco-hero Captain Planet’s catch phrase is,
and you’ll know that sometimes you shoulnd’t fight on the planets size.

Thank you.