Gates Fears Copenhagen Climate Change Pledge Puts Pressure on Health, Environment
ngrclimatereports January 29th, 2010
Bill Gates has warned that growing donor support for climate change threatens thousands of lives in the developing world by squeezing out funding for health, and putting pressure on the environment, the Financial Times/Factiva report. In an annual letter released last Sunday through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Gates expresses caution over the $100 billion in extra pledges by rich countries made to the developing world by 2020 at December’s Copenhagen climate summit.
According to Reuters/Factiva, Gates said that amount represents more than three quarters of foreign aid currently given by the richest countries per year. “If just 1 percent of the $100 billion goal came from vaccine funding, then 700,000 more children could die from preventable diseases,” Gates added. Taking the focus away from health aid could be bad for the environment in the long run, said Gates, “because improvements in health, including voluntary family planning, lead people to have smaller families, which in turn reduces the strain on the environment”.
Associated Press/Factiva writes further that “…nearly seven pages of the letter focus on the foundation’s work in global health and repeatedly Gates admits the work to reach the foundation’s ambitious goals is harder than they expected. Vaccine development is progressing, but the cost to provide those vaccines to the poor is still a problem. It’s going to be difficult to meet a six-year goal to get the retrovirus vaccine to more than half the kids who need it”.
- Climate Change , Development , News
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