Naomi Klein: Why Rich Countries Should Pay Reparations To Poor Countries For The Climate Crisis

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AMY GOODMAN: And the delegates, the people who are involved in the climate talks, as opposed to the activists in the street -- something interesting that happened ten years ago with the Battle of Seattle that also turned things were those inside who were saying, "You are not listening to us." I mean, developing countries, for example, countries in Africa. What about those countries here, their role at the climate summit in Copenhagen?

NAOMI KLEIN: Well, you know, it remains to be seen. As I said, some of the most interesting solutions are being put on the table by Latin American governments, like Bolivia, also Ecuador.

But what we just saw in Barcelona, which was, you know, the last major negotiating push before the meeting in Copenhagen, is that the coalition of African states walked out of the summit en masse. So, basically a form of civil disobedience within the summit, in protest of the very low commitments for emission cuts coming from the developed world, which was interesting that the African bloc walked out, not because there wasn’t enough money for them, not because there wasn’t enough aid for them to deal climate change, but because they don’t simply want aid, they want us in the rich world to change our way of life because they are facing the effects of that. They’re on the front lines of climate change.