break records, the u.s. and china's climate envoys meet in beijing. but political disputes have stopped talks between the world's top two polluters. so can they find common ground, and will developed nations help more vulnerable ones adapt to climate change? this is "inside story." ♪ hello. welcome to the program. i am adrian finighan. the u.s. and china have

restarted stalled talks on climate change just as some of the world swelters in record-breaking heat as others suffer catastrophic flooding. the need for urgent action is long known, but what isn't is who will take responsibility for the damage and healing the environment. developing nations says the developed world has had free reign to use fossil fuels and pollute for much of the time since the industrial revolution. poorer nations saying they are being asked to pay for the impact when richer countries are more to blame. we will be discussing these arguments and more in just a few minutes with our guests. but first, this report from beijing on the u.s./china meeting. reporter: john kerry is visiting china as the country grapples with its most severe heat wave on record. during his four days here he will meet with the climate envoy from china for a series of talks, and they will discuss reducing emissions, particularly methane, and curbing deforestation and the use of coal. the u.s. says it is imperative

that beijing and washington take the lead on this issue, as the world's biggest polluters and emitters of greenhouse gases, as well as the fact that both countries are currently addicted to the use of fossil fuels. china has pledged to reduce its coal consumption, but not until 2026, and it has in recent years accelerated approvals for coal-related projects. washington has criticized beijing for its climate record, and says china should pay into global funds to help poorer countries fight global warming. now, while beijing says it supports a fund for wealthy nations such as the u.s. to play for climate-related damages and loss, it does not want to pay into these funds itself because it counts china as a developing country still. u.s./china climate cooperation has suffered in recent years due to a range of political and economic disagreements, but analysts say that both sides must set aside these differences in order to address the climate crisis officially. adrian: john kerry has said that

under no circumstances would the u.s. pay climate reparations to developing countries affected by climate-related disasters. at a summit in paris last month, wealthy nations did agree a $100 billion package to help developing nations adapt, but that is well short of what the u.n. says is needed. a u.n.-backed report last year concluded that developing countries needed to spend around $1 trillion a year within the next two years, and that did not include china. the report says that an investment of $2.4 trillion will be needed every year from 2030 to help countries in the developing world cope with climate change. it also argues that rich countries have severely impacted developing ones with high levels of emissions, and should pick up half the cost. the rest should come from domestic sources in developing countries to help prepare the environment and limit damage.

so let's bring in our guests. from london, we are joined by saleemul huq, who is director of the international center for climate change and development, a research organization based in bangladesh. we're joined by oulie keita, executive director of greenpeace africa. also in london is asad rehman, executive director of war on want, an anti-poverty charity which partners with social movements in the global south. a warm welcome to you all. saleemul, let's start with you. as you heard there, john kerry said that under no circumstances would the u.s. pay reparations to developing nations affected by climate change. should the u.s. and other developed nations be forced to do so, and if so, by whom? saleemul: first of all, my message for mr. kerry is that he should worry about his own citizens in texas and las vegas and in nevada who are now suffering from extreme heat impacts under the heat dome that

the united states of america is suffering from. and then in vermont from flooding that is taking place, this is all impact of human-induced climate change causing losses and damages to the citizens of the united states. and the bill -- and they are paying for it themselves right now -- the bill will be in the billions and possibly trillions to the united states of america, to his own citizens. so he needs to be worrying about what he is going to do to protect them, and only after that, figure out what he can do to help the rest of the world, which under the united nations agreement we made in cop27, they have agreed to do. they are not paying reparations, they are paying solidarity funds, and all countries have agreed to put money into that fund. adrian: saleemul, bangladesh of course, well-used to dealing with the impacts of climate change already with, as you say, the climate in the u.s. becoming

more erratic, with heat waves, more destructive tornadoes, the flooding you mentioned, wildfires. and with that impacting more and more people, do you think that citizens of the u.s. are becoming more mindful of the impact of climate change now, and will demand more from their government? saleemul: well, they are certainly being affected. to what extent they realize that it is human-induced climate change remains to be seen, because the fossil fuel industry in the u.s. has done a very, very good job of keeping its own citizens ignorant of what climate change impacts are. but increasingly they are realizing it, and particularly young people on the u.s. are certainly far more aware of the impacts of human-induced climate change and the fact that they are suffering because of global

temperature rise of well over 1.1 degree that has already occurred and we are headed to 1.5 in the next few years. so these are going to get worse. and no country is prepared, including rich countries like the united states of america, and everybody will have to be better prepared at dealing with those impacts from climate change. adaptation, adapting to them. you mentioned bangladesh, my country is one of the most vulnerable countries to the impacts of climate change and has been adapting to those impacts. so we are quite well-prepared. we are still going to be impacted, it will cause a lot of harm, but by being better prepared we can minimize what we call losses and damages from climate change. being unprepared is going to maximize losses and damages from climate change, and the u.s. is in that situation. they are unprepared, and therefore, suffering a lot more. adrian: oulie, how closely will african nations be following these discussions in beijing? oulie: well, you know, at greenpeace africa, we strongly support the loss and damage

fund, which we know was agreed upon with all the international stakeholders at cop27. and so, just to add to what my predecessor said, we actually do understand that kerry has clarified that he did not mean that the u.s. would not pay into the loss and damage fund, but rather, that they won't be admitting to the liability. which we disagree with. we think everybody who is polluting should be held accountable and should definitely be held liable for the damage it's causing to the global environmental space. so while we support the demands of, say, our continents, our african governments for loss and damage, for payments in adaptation and mitigation finance, we also are demanding that our own african governments and businesses who are polluting, who are exploiting, to lead in adopting the right

policies and practices and lead by example. so, at greenpeace africa, the african countries need not to try to follow the destructive pathways of development that the global north countries did. but rather, we are asking that the path be based away from extractivism, which has clearly manifested itself as a resource curse across the global south, and as a climate crisis that affects the entire human species. so this is what we are working towards, and we hope that we will be in dubai at cop29 there and voice our concerns. adrian: asad, to what extent is it hypocritical of john kerry to be going for china for talks when the u.s. itself continues to expand its own fossil fuel industries? asad: well, it is deeply immoral and outrageous. and we have to remember, even

the word climate reparations, it is not simply about paying compensation for the damage that can't be repaired, it is also about doing no more harm in -- and repairing the harm that you have caused. and the u.s. is responsible for about a quarter of all historic emissions. europe, about 22%. and the u.s. is still planning one of the biggest fossil fuel expansions globally along with the european union, australia, and others. so it is a case of do as i say, not as i do. and of course consumption, all the consumption of that carbon budget that saleemul talked about, that critical one we have to keep below 1.5, it has been calculated. i mean, it is an immense figure. it's about $170 trillion with the u.s. liable for about $80 trillion of that, what some would call carbon colonialism. so, the scale of the problem and what is being offered by particularly rich countries who are most responsible is just a drop in the ocean. we have the u.n. saying that adaptation would mean between

$300 billion a year by 2030 to about $500 billion a year by 2050. and we have got to remember that, at the moment, the promise of even $100 billion has not been met. that was promised back in 2007, and the u.s. currently offers about $1 billion to the green climate fund. let's put that into perspective. at the same time, the u.s. is approving about $877 billion for its military spending. so i think the reality between what is the need, what is the crisis, and we only need to take a step back, the world is boiling, we see temperatures breaching 50 degrees in many countries. but the key differences between the rich countries and the poor countries is, which countries feel like they have the capacity and the resources to be able to address this crisis, while poor countries aren't. because they are not just dealing with a climate crisis,

they are dealing with a crisis of poverty and inequality, they are still recovering from the covid pandemic, and of course now face a cost-of-living crisis. so much so that they are paying more in debt, five times more in debt than they are spending on climate. so they are trapped into a global economic system of unfair tax, trade, and debt, largely shaped by the u.s. and rich countries. so it is not simply about the u.s. not putting up money, it is actually locking poorer countries in to a pathway that makes them unable to be able to develop cleanly. what we really need at this moment is a framework of solidarity and cooperation. technology being shared, finance being given, so people can develop clearly. that is why we at war on want call for a global green new deal together with many movements across the global south. adrian: but asad, who is going to pay for it? kenya's president has called for the establishment of a global green bank to assist developing nations as they try to mitigate the effects of climate change,

without exacerbating their already unsustainable levels of debt. is that a good idea? is that not something that the world bank and the imf should be doing, for instance? asad: the problem is many of these national institutions such as the imf and world bank are dominated by rich country interests. and in fact, they have been overwhelmingly responsible for fueling much of the dirty development pathways they have locked in developing countries into. economic situations that say you have to open your economy, you cannot build resilience in your economy, you have to privatize everything. it's just a misguided and failed approach. i think what many developing country leaders, and it's not just the president of kenya, it is the prime minister of barbados, or the brazilian president lula, they are talking about we really need to fix the global economy to be more fairer and more equitable and that it puts climate and tackling poverty at its center.

now, there are lots of different approaches that could be done. we could actually tax the corporations who are responsible for this damage much better. we could fix our trade system. we could tax the wealthy, billionaires, who have been overwhelmingly the ones who have benefited the most from these forms of crises and exploitation. their wealth is growing exponentially, while the majority of the world sees their everyday income falling. so there are many, many solutions. what we lack is political will. and the problem we have is, as john kerry was saying to the u.s. senate, we have -- not just in the united states but across europe, political leaders who are looking at their domestic circumstances and basically saying, we are no longer able to provide the solidarity, the cooperation, or pay our fair share. this is not about justice. it is fundamentally about justice. if you burned down somebody's

home, you have to be the ones that pay for it to be fixed, and that is what rich countries do not want to do. that is the real question about liability that the u.s. wants to avoid. adrian: saleemul, i see you nodding your head there. do you agree with what asad is saying? saleemul: indeed, i do. and let me just take it a bit further in terms of the argument. now, climate change is a global problem, and unfortunately just in the last few days, in the first week of july, on july 3 we had the hottest temperature the world has ever seen. and then a day later on july 4, that record got broken. and then two days later on july 6, the record was broken again. so we have very clearly crossed into the threshold of losses and damages from the impacts of human-induced climate change. and it is a global problem that everybody in the world, every country in the world is going to have to face. and unfortunately, both the economic systems that we have at

the global level, as well as the security systems, as asad mentioned, the united states military that absorbs enormous amounts of funds, is actually not at all prepared for dealing with the climate problem, which is going to be their number one security problem going forward. indeed, in fact the u.s. military is probably one of the biggest polluters because of the emissions of greenhouse gases associated with its activities. so not only is it not fit for purpose for the new security regime that the global, the whole world is going to have to face, this is not country against country, this is the world against climate change. and we are not ready for it. and we need to change the way we do things. adrian: saleemul, when john kerry warned in beijing that the u.s. and china are running out of time to avert a harrowing future, is what he said, to what extent is it already too late for that, that we have passed the tipping point here? the future is now about

mitigating the effects. asad, i can see you are shaking your head, i will come back to you in a moment. but quickly saleemul, i want to bring oulie back into the discussion. saleemul: we have to work at two timescales. the immediate emergency crisis timescale is dealing with the impacts of climate change that are happening all over the world but primarily on poor people living in poor countries. but in the longer term we need to be preventing the globally catastrophic temperature increases for which we are headed if we don't take actions on mitigation. we are going to have to chew gum and walk at the same time. adrian: asad, just very quickly. asad: absolutely, we have to chew gum and walk at the same time. look, it is never too late because what we are talking about is the scale of the impacts. and we know that we have to limit temperatures well below 1.5 degrees. that is not a target, that is already recognizing that global warming and increased temperatures is already deadly

for many people, and is devastating people's lives and livelihoods. it gets exponentially worse and worse and will become harder and harder to fix. so every degree that we shave off is millions of lives that we have saved and prevented from facing this kind of climate battle. so it is never too late. the question really now is which countries need to cut their emissions fairly, which does mean that they should be at zero carbon by 2030 at the latest, so that poorer countries have got a little bit more time to be able to cut their emissions. we need to be at zero carbon by 2050. and we need the finance and technology. fundamentally, if you want poorer countries to be able to move away from the data consumption development pathways, you have got to be able to support them. if you don't, you are going to lock half the world into poverty and inequality, and that is simply not acceptable. adrian: oulie, for years, developed nations have warned developing nations against the use of fossil fuels. they have routinely denied them

loans for oil and gas projects, for instance. now we have got germany reopening coal-fired power stations, european nations granting energy consumption subsidies and calling on african nations to ramp up their production of natural gas for export. how are these apparent double standards being viewed there in africa? oulie: it is viewed very negatively. my predecessor called it justice. it is all about climate justice. i think in africa, what we are trying to do now is to develop global iconic campaigns. there is one of them which is called stop drilling and start paying, or, make polluters pay, which is really about climate justice. this campaign is targeting holding the extremities accountable and stopping them in their tracks. we need people, big polluters, to pay for the damage they are causing to the world. so in south africa for example,

we have confronted big polluters such as exxon and shell, on their polluting business model, which will continue to drive a shift in mindset from the fossil fuel independence, to more of a renewable energy. so, we are holding polluters accountable for oil spills, like the worst environmental disaster as you have seen in july three years ago. this is one of the things that we are pushing back in africa. we campaigned to stop oil and gas development in countries like the grc, like in cameroon, in nigeria, in many of the african countries. so, we're all about pushing back, we're all about stopping these polluters and these governments draining, and start paying. if we really want to build a climate justice movement across the globe, we need to now start

to really hold people accountable. this is something that we are big on in greenpeace africa, and we are going to push it across the continent. adrian: but when you talk about this climate justice movement, who needs to take the lead here? this can't be down to grassroots organizations, can it? this needs someone or something to take the lead here and bang politician's heads together on this issue. oulie: yes. i mean, the president said it very well. he said, climate action is not a global enough issue, it's our collective challenge and it affects all of us. which is true. so we need to come together to find common global solutions. and this is why i appreciate the african governments now taking accountability, now trying to have the political will together as the african union. they are now organizing something called the africa climate summit. this is big. this is the first time the african government, all of them,

are coming together to champion climate change, to have a roadmap for climate change. and with the expectation of escalating climate crisis in terms of the frequency and intensities, urgent action is required for us to mitigate these challenges. so it's taken -- as you rightly said, somebody needs to take decisions, somebody needs to be bold and ambitious, somebody needs to be accountable. if governments are starting to really put their heads together and speak as one and say this is serious, we need to put our resources, we need to put our technical know-how, we need to put all of our resources in order to mitigate some of these challenges for our people, for the global entity as the world that we are. then we would have solutions to this climate change. adrian: saleemul and asad, both nodding. let's come to saleemul first. you were in agreement there? saleemul: absolutely.

i think what oulie said is that we need to be changing our mindset from leaders just thinking about their own countries, which is what john kerry was reflecting when he responded to a senator in the senate, to thinking about being citizens of planet earth, and all of us being in the same planet earthship, facing a common problem, a common enemy if you like, that is attacking the entire planet. and our leaders, unfortunately, simply have not been able to shift the paradigm in which they think. they just think about national interests in very short-term terms, and those are not going to help us in the long run. adrian: asad, to what extent is this wishful thinking though about this global leadership? there are too many vested interests here. people who politically do not see eye-to-eye to agree on anything. asad: look, we have a global framework. we have a global treaty, we have

the u.n. convention on climate change. we have the cop and the climate summit. but reality is, look, if you are in the u.s. and your per capita emissions is about 14 tons per individual, and that's seven times india's, and the majority of people in the continent of africa have a negligible footprint, it is very difficult for developing countries to say, look, how much more do you want us to do without resources and support? half the world currently is locked into poverty, denied even access to electricity and clean cooking. people need those things. the real question is, until the united states, the european union, the u.k., and others, come to the table and recognize that they have a responsibility, they have caused the most damage, they have to cut their own emissions, they have to stop this expansion of fossil fuels, but they also have to recognize that the wealth that they have taken from the global south and continue to take from the global

south -- look, it is calculated since 1960 to this present moment, that close to $152 trillion in wealth taken out of the global south to the north. basically, developing countries need support, and rich countries have got the capacity and got the wealth to be able to do it. so it needs a collective effort, but rich countries are the main block here. adrian: all right. saleemul, i wonder, you have john kerry at the moment talking to china, another of the world's biggest polluters. in terms of sheer population size and expanding economy, where does india fit into this picture? if john kerry is in beijing talking about climate, shouldn't he be in new delhi? saleemul: absolutely. i think china and the u.s. are certainly the two countries as countries that matter with respect to the emissions of greenhouse gases. china having overtaken the u.s. recently is the biggest emitter.

but india is not very far behind and needs to be dropped into the picture. there is going to be a summit of the g20 countries very soon hosted by india, where hopefully they will take this issue on board and all the biggest economies in the world will take this issue forward and deal with it. the good news is that both in china and india, they are realizing that they have more to gain by transitioning away from fossil fuels into cleaner energy, because they are both vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. in fact, china is extremely vulnerable. they are having heat waves right now as we speak. adrian: ok. oulie, we are almost out of time, one final thought from you. are you at all hopeful? is there any room for optimism here, that the worst effects of climate change can still be avoided? or do you think we have actually passed the tipping point, that all this is too little, too late, that it's now about mitigation? oulie: no, i'm hopeful. i think countries such as african countries right now,

they are realizing that although they are minuscule contributors to global emissions, but within just several decades in tandem with changes in population growth and decline of property, some forecasts are saying that emissions from the continent will match those of india today. so, imagine if that happens. they are realizing that we need to have resources in place. we need to invest in this. it is a global issue that affects all of us. so i am now very hopeful to see that the african nations are coming together as an african union to address climate change through the africa climate summit. so i am very hopeful. it is never too late. we can do more. adrian: thank you so much to all of you. it has been great to talk to you today. saleemul huq, oulie keita, and asad rehman. and as always, thank you for watching. don't forget, you can see the program again any time by going to the website, we are at aljazeera.com. for further discussion join us

on our facebook page at facebook.com/ajinsidestory. and of course you can join this conversation on twitter, our handle @ajinsidestory. from me, adrian finighan, and the team here at doha, we'll see you here again. bye for now. ♪