The United States has opposed environmental compensation efforts for countries in Africa and other developing nations since the administration of former US President Richard Nixon, spending decades avoiding the so-called "big bill" for environmental justice on the continent, the National Security Archive said on Thursday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th July, 2023) The United States has opposed environmental compensation efforts for countries in Africa and other developing nations since the administration of former US President Richard Nixon, spending decades avoiding the so-called "big bill" for environmental justice on the continent, the National Security Archive said on Thursday.
"As the world's wealthiest countries continue to avoid making serious financial commitments to developing states on the front lines of the climate crisis, declassified records published today by the National Security Archive document more than 50 years of US resistance to environmental compensation measures," the National Security Archive said in a statement.
The National Security Archive is a private organization focused on expanding public access to government information and publishing former secrets.
The documents include an intelligence report from the Nixon administration which noted increased African "militancy" on development matters and anticipating views linking the environment and development, the statement said.
Although efforts to avoid what former US President George H.W. Bush dubbed the "big bill" for environmental compensation in Africa are often seen as starting in the 1990s, the documents reveal that the efforts actually extend back two decades to 1972, the statement said.
The documents' release comes several weeks after climate finance issues were the subject of a weeks-long argument at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Subsidiary Bodies Climate Conference.
