Speaking in Poznan, Poland, in conjunction with the UN climate talks there--the last big round before the follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol needs to be finalized in Copenhagen, Denmark at the end of next year--Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said "It seems very strange, what has happened in the past two or three months."
"It defies any kind of logic, if you look at the type of money that the world has spent on these [financial] bailouts, 2.7 trillion dollars (2.13 trillion euros) is the estimate, and it's been done so quickly and without questioning."
Pachauri recalled that when the Millennium Development Goals for attacking poverty and sickness were being drawn up, a panel chaired by Ernesto Zedillo, the former president of Mexico, suggested "a fairly modest estimate" of 50 billion dollars a year in help for poor countries.
"But everyone scoffed at it. Nobody did a damn thing," Pachauri said in the interview on Monday.
Read More