Clinton summit warns on global warming

By Marcia Stepanek

updated 11:31 a.m. ET Sept. 25, 2008

NEW YORK - Bill Clinton's fourth annual, star-studded philanthropy and cause advocacy think fest — the Clinton Global Initiative — concluded last week in Manhattan rife with references to global climate change, the U.S. financial meltdown, and the critical nature of the upcoming presidential elections on the ability of America to restore some of its luster to the world.

WEDNESDAY HIGHLIGHTS
Bono trounced the failure of the developing world to meet Millennium Goals thus far. He blasted the Wall Street bailout, saying: "It's extraordinary to me that you can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G-8 can't find $25 billion to save the 25,000 children who die from preventable diseases and hunger." Flanked on an opening session stage by Al Gore, Lance Armstrong, Bill Clinton, Princess Rania of Jordan, and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the president of Liberia, Bono said: "Bankruptcy is bad enough but this is moral bankruptcy." The lead singer for U2 and co-founder of Product RED called on the next U.S. president, "whoever that may be" to lead a global effort to ease global challenges around climate change, poverty, and other social ills. This, he said, would "help America to redescribe itself to the rest of the world."

Former Vice President Al Gore urged young people to engage in "civil disobedience" to stop the construction of old-style, coal-powered energy plants. The Nobel Peace Prize winner and environmental crusader said that "the world has lost ground to the climate crisis." Since last year's CGI, he said, there has been no improvement in the world's ability to fight climate change. "This is a rout," he said. "We're losing badly." He added: "If you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration." He also said it is time for people to stop "buying the lie, the notion" that burning coal is still an acceptable energy alternative. "Clean coal, like healthy cigarettes, doesn't exist," he said. Gore also called for an alliance between environmental activists and anti-poverty groups to provide green energy sources to people in developing countries and impoverished urban environments around the U.S.

Former President Bill Clinton, speaking to a small group of bloggers, said he thinks there is, at least, "a 50 percent chance" that people will give more to those in need during the evolving U.S. financial crisis. He said the financial crisis in the U.S. "will make the work of putting philanthropists and organizations together more significant over the next couple of years."

Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin called the financial crisis "a really extraordinary situation — by far the most extraordinary that the capital markets have faced since the 1930s. The 1930s situation was multiples worse than this," he added, "but this is an extraordinary situation." Rubin, currently the director and chairman of the executive committee of Citigroup, said the first priority for the country is to "deal with the crisis of confidence that we're facing" and work quickly to pass legislation now before Congress. "There are no guarantees in life, but what is being proposed could help significantly, and if it's not passed, it will exacerbate [the crisis]."

Former President George H. W. Bush made a surprise appearance to talk about the need for Americans to join him and Clinton to raise money for those displaced by natural disasters in the American South. "People are without homes and without jobs as a result of forces beyond their control," Bush said. "Just as we Americans gave to the victims of the tsunami four years ago, we must give to those in the Gulf suffering from sudden displacement."

Bill Gates, in a one-on-one conversation with Bill Clinton, said that amid the financial crisis and economic slowdown, "we have to show [the wealthy] that [philanthropy] is fun, that it has impact, that there are great success stories." When asked what advice he'd give to wealthy philanthropists now taking a beating on the value of their investments, Gates said: "I think there are a lot of rich people. The percentage [of their wealth] that is being given to these great causes and inequity relative to that wealth is very small, and so a fairly modest increase in the amount [of giving] going [to philanthropy] can certainly offset the gyrations in terms of stock market valuation." Gates called on assembled philanthropists and nonprofits to "get more creative" with using the Internet to engage more people around giving. "No matter what the scale of giving, we have to be more connected," he said. "The Internet is our friend."

The nonprofit group, CGAP, which is researching and developing mobile banking services for the so-called bottom-of-the-pyramid customers in developing countries, announced it would spend $10 million to find business models that could provide mobile banking services to 25 million people in 20 countries. "We're launching a mobile banking call to action here, and we hope it will help us reach millions of poor people who, until now, have been left out of the formal financial system," said CGAP CEO Elizabeth Littlefield. "The brick-and-mortar bank branch system can only go so far." She said that with cell phone service and a local shop handling the cash, "mobile banking can reach every village and barrio in the developing world." Target countries include: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, DR Congo, Ecuador, Egypt, Ghana, India, Kenya, Maldives, Mexico, Mongolia, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.

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