Addressing Global Warming by Using Money Saved From Disarmament [Mao Yushi]
Author:Unirule
Time：2010-04-15 16:43:12 Clicks:
Global warming and the threat of war are two of the greatest crisis confronting mankind today. Though not counted as a crisis, poverty elimination is still listed as one of the chief targets of this century. If money saved from disarmament could be used in addressing global warming and poverty elimination, these targets will be possibly attained simultaneously. This will definitely benefit us mankind greatly.
General consensus has been reached on the issues of poverty and global warming. A series of conferences are held on poverty alleviation and global warming both at home and abroad. Sound progress has been made in poverty elimination in recent years, as no free rider problem was involved. Each country uses their own money and is able to enjoy the fruit of poverty alleviation of their own. However, no significant advances have been made in addressing global warming and disarmament. No consensus was reached on the UN conference on tackling global warming through emission cut, which was held in Copenhagen not long ago. The reason lies in the fact that all countries were trying their best to shake off their responsibilities in cost sharing of emission cut. Though it is widely agreed that world temperature is rising and all countries have to take preventive measures, different countries have different views as to how to split the costs of emission cut, and all wishes the other countries to take more of the costs. There are no solutions to such games in which people takes free ride of each other or try to prevent others to take a free ride. The core of the problem is still an economics problem, that is, who is to share more (or less) of the costs of emission cut. This problem will be solved as long as we are able to find a way to work out the costs needed for emission reduction.
Meanwhile, undercover arm race is still going on globally. Countries are all strengthening national defense, developing new weapons, and making money from ammunitions trade, without showing a trace of relaxing themselves. They are trying to ensure their security through enhancing armament instead of disarmament, to terminate wars with wars rather than peace and disarmament. Even the emergence of terrorism failed to change people’s idea of using weapons to address the threat of wars. Arms race is even fiercer. The United Nations used to call for disarmament, but now such an important issue as disarmament seems have been totally forgotten. Compared with global warming, an equally important topic like disbarment is scarcely mentioned. Vast resources of human society are used in developing and building weapons, which brings about more hazards to mankind. What an irrational choice made by mankind!
When viewed separately, climate problem and disarmament are two hard nuts to crack. However, the two thorny problems turn out much easier to tackle when viewed together, as they are actually mutually dependent. Once the issue of disarmament gets solved, money for preventing global warming will no longer be lacking, thus killing two birds with one stone. That’s why we propose to conduct research, reflection and recommend solutions while putting these two problems together. Now climate change is frequently discussed while disarmament is rarely mentioned. In other words, climate change is now quite a hot issue while disarmament is comparatively rather cold. If we are able to make disarmament as hot as climate change, we’ll stand a better chance of solving the two problems at the same time. Though being rather different in content, they have one point in common, that is the problem of free rider who wishes others to solve problems firstly. If we all wish others to act first with no paybacks, who will be willing to take the lead? If the two problems are put together, countries who act first will get the payback of paying the cost of preventing global warming with money saved from disarmament. In other words, the two problems will be easier to handle if disarmament can become a substitute of global warming quota. [Page]
Two difficulties exist in disarmament. One is worry of putting ourselves in a dangerous situation if the other countries do not commit disarmament when we do so. The other is the fact that interest group of arms merchants oppose to disarmament as they make money by trading ammunitions. Though the latter is a fact, arms merchants will never say it. Instead, they find various excuses and work all the oracles of anti-disarmament by using enormous money in their hands. Their reasons for opposing disarmament won’t hold water both in terms of ethics and logics, and could never be put on the table. The interest group of arms merchants will be helpless against powerful media offensive. Therefore, the real obstacle lies in politicians of all countries, who are afraid that disarmament will threat national security.
It also makes sense that people worry that the other countries do not commit disarmament when they do so. This is also the major reason why not much progress was made in disarmament in the past. Thus, there’s nothing wrong with balanced disarmament, the real problem lies in the fact that people tend to request others to conduct balanced disarmament while they themselves do not take vigorous action. Now due to global warming, countries are facing double pressures, that is, disarmament and emission reduction sharing. Since voluntary disarmament will relieve both pressures at the same time, disarmament sees more hope.
We do not wish to tackle disarmament with old tricks, which are merely quarrelling topics for countries. We hope all countries will play a leading role in voluntarily taking their own responsibility for disarmament. So the first step of work requires that NGOs of all countries arouse and organize the masses to encourage their governments to take voluntary disarmament. If this mission is assigned to governments directly, most likely we will fall into old situations. Mass movement needs cooperation from governments. In the very beginning NGOs might need to make more efforts, and then more active and wider involvement of governments is required, which should be also done in connection to global warming responsibility sharing. The ultimate settlement of these problems must be implemented by governments.
Masses of all countries should request their governments to conduct active disarmament, cut military budget, and develop no new weapons any more. They should also oppose showing off force of arms or using force as bargaining chips, expose various excuses used by interest group for objecting disarmament, and fight against anti-disarmament. However, we should always bear on mind that this kind of fight is meant to point out our way out by argument instead of prevailing over the other party. We expect that a large-scale, yet peaceful and reasonable, international mass disarmament movement, which mainly takes place within countries, will take place.
Disarmament and global warming should be combined with each other on relevant UN conferences. Each country’s commitment for disarmament can be turned into emission cut target on condition that money saved from disarmament is used in emission reduction. This won’t be a difficult thing to do if the international world has a price for emission reduction target (cost for each tonne of carbon emission cut).[Page]
In the twenty-first century, many problems of great weight have to be solved by mankind, among which global warming, and disarmament in particular, are the most urgent ones. Poverty elimination is also a goal in the near thirty or fifty years. Immense funds are needed in addressing climate change and poverty elimination, while disarmament not only requires no money but also saves vast resources, which could be used in solving the previously-mentioned two problems. Therefore, disarmament is the key of solving the two other problems. Though having been discussed for almost a century, no significant progress was made in disarmament. On the contrary, more and more money, several times over the past, was spent on military expenditure. Weapons now are much finer than ever before. Our wits and intelligence are not used in improving people’s life but are wasted in improving our ability of destroying properties and killing people, which is nothing but a blessing for mankind. Anyway, we can not put off this mission to our next generation. So let’s act now.
