One of the sore points in the UN climate negotiations is the question of who should pay for floods and other disasters that are intensified or even caused by global warming. Pakistan has been especially insistent that it needs international aid to rebuild after intense flooding. I am not against this idea in the abstract, but note the following points.
(1) A nation is responsible for preparing for disasters. It ought to keep sea walls and dikes in good repair, for example. It should also restrict building on a flood plain which will almost certainly be inundated in the foreseeable future. This point also applies to provinces or states within nations. When Florida allows extensive building close to the sea, while at the same time removing large mangrove trees which are an effective defence against storm surges, it should not be able, when disaster strikes, to ask for billions in aid. Regions and a nations have a duty to protect their citizens, and this means they should prepare for possible disasters. I cannot say whether Pakistan fulfilled its duty to be prepared, but it is fair to ask the question and investigate before handing over billions of dollars.
(2) In 2019 the nations with nuclear weapons spent about $73 billion on their arsenals. Some nations that are asking for free disaster aid are also nuclear powers, notably Pakistan. Should it continue to make large investments in atomic bombs rather than make that money available as disaster aid? Would not loans to such a nation be, in effect, assistance to their nuclear programs? Supposedly, such weapons are for national defence, but in practice the bombs are in storage, available just in case. The estimated annual cost of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program is $1 billion. It also was costly to develop the weapons in the first place, and took almost twenty years before the first bomb was tested successfully in 1998. The total expense of Pakistan's nuclear program is therefore at least $30 billion. Had they used that money to prepare for flood disasters, it would be roughly twice the $15 billion they now are requesting in free disaster aid. India has spent more than twice that sum on nuclear weapons in the last quarter century, so it might have had more than $60 billion for environmental projects and disaster aid.
On the whole, if all the money now spent on nuclear weapons could be reallocated to curbing global warming, by 2035 it would amount to $1 trillion.
I am amazed that any nuclear state has the nerve to ask for free aid to protect its people from environmental disasters. If they have billions for weapons of mass destruction, then they do not need charity when disaster strikes. Rather. they need to rethink their priorities.
On this basis, I suggest that the following nations should not be eligible for free disaster assistance:
The United States
China
Britain
Russia
France
India
North Korea
Iran
One might want to add more nations to this list, depending on their annual budget for conventional ams.
