Clinton summit warns on global warming

THURSDAY HIGHLIGHTS
John McCain defended his decision to put his presidential campaign on hold and his request for a delay of the first presidential debate, telling CGI attendees he wanted to stay in Washington awhile to work closely with fellow lawmakers to make sure the bailout is void of special favors to both Wall Street leaders "who got us into this mess" and any "backroom deals." He said: "...Mistakes made now could have catastrophic consequences for this country's future." Then, in a nod to running mate Sarah Palin, who sat with Cindy McCain in the audience, McCain added to sparse applause: "I'd rather build a bridge to nowhere—and put it square in the middle of Sedona, Arizona—than take money from teachers and farmers and small business owners to line the pockets of the Wall Street crowd that got us here in the first place."

McCain further sought to explain his mid-week move to temporarily halt his campaign by saying: "History must not record that when our nation faced such a moment, its leadership was unable to put aside politics and focus in a unified way to solve the problems of our country. It is time for everyone to recall that the political process is not an end in itself, nor is it intended to serve those of us who are in the middle of it. In the Senate of the United States, our duty is to serve the people of this country and we can serve them best now by putting politics aside and dealing in a focused, straightforward, bipartisan way with the problem at hand."

Barack Obama, about a half-hour later, addressed conferees via satellite, firmly reiterating his decision "to be in Oxford, Miss. Friday night" for the first debate. "The American people are in a financial crisis and they are fighting two wars abroad. [They] deserve to hear directly from myself and from John McCain about how we both intend to address the future. It's too serious of a time to put our campaigns on hold. We must address directly the full range of issues that the next president will face" in an open debate before the public.

Obama then named energy the top issue facing all world leaders: "Our dependence on oil funds terror and tyranny and puts the future of our planet in peril," Obama said. "[Energy] is the moral challenge of our time. The time to debate climate change is past. It's time for America to lead. He also said that if elected, he would make four specific commitments on the four issues that CGI has emphasized: climate change, poverty, education, and health. "Climate change. Poverty. Extremism. Disease. These problems offend our common humanity. They also threaten our common security. You know this. The question is what do we do about it?"

Wyclef Jean and his three-year-old NGO, YeleHaiti.org, urged assembled philanthropists to urgently consider thousands of Haitians displaced by the Aug. 26, category 4 hurricane that slammed into the coastal cities of his native Haiti. "Remember Katrina?" he said. "The hurricane that hit Haiti was Katrina times a million." In the coastal city of Gonaives, Jean said: "The whole city smells like dead bodies; kids are still on rooftops; people haven't eaten for 12 days." He said 55 schools were destroyed, with 593 damaged and in need of rebuilding. "I remember being so poor, I ate dirt from the ground," Jean told reporters at a press conference. "We have hunger in Haiti all the time; after Gustav, people are starving faster."

Philanthropist Eli Broad announced a new $44 million, three-year research and development initiative called EdLabs, which will team up with three of the largest urban school systems in the country: New York, Chicago, and the District of Columbia. EdLab will be housed at Harvard and work to identify and advance strategies to improve student achievement in America' s troubled public schools. "The military had DARPA; this will be the educational equivalent," said Broad, who is contributing $6 million to the venture. New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said: "Everybody talks about reform but it's really the same tired bromide, like applying a tongue to a sore tooth.... It's time for innovation."

FRIDAY HIGHLIGHTS
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was headed down to Washington Friday afternoon to help advise U.S. leaders on the financial crisis, urged CGI attendees to back global efforts to re-build the world's financial system. "We need an early warning system for the world's economic systems so as to restore confidence in the markets," he said. In addition, Brown said the World Bank should transform itself into an institution that leads environmental reforms around the world, and the United Nations should start focusing on new ways to deal with governments and nations in the throes of economic decline. And, he said, institutions everywhere must find new ways to use information technology to help advance their initiatives and better serve those in need. "We all need to innovate for global perspective," he said.

Rene Preval, president of of Haiti, issued a moving and eloquent appeal for fast help to rebuild his flooded nation, ravaged in late August by Hurricane Gustav. "It's sad to say that if there are no dead bodies on the [TV/computer] screen, public opinion becomes disinterested very quickly. Important work remains to be done." He said the nation's infrastructure needs to be completely rebuilt — but not, he said, so it resembles what it was before. "We need to build back better," he said, to accommodate what is certain to be more hurricane activity in the years ahead due to global warming. "More than 90 percent of the crops in Haiti have disappeared in this recent string of hurricanes," Preval told a panel on poverty, "and in six months, we will not have any food to give to the population. The United Nations sent $107 million but this money was already used up a month ago. We are very worried, so I am appealing not only to the international community but to the private sector to help Haiti see to its needs for the next six months." Fellow CGI attendees Matt Damon and Frank McKenna of ONEXONE.org; Wyclef Jean of Yele Haiti, and past CGI attendees Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt announced aid to Haiti during the conference. More, though, is needed, said Clinton — and quickly. 

In all, this year's CGI reaped 250 new commitments for helping those less fortunate, valued at a total of $8 billion and targeted to help a total of 158 million people around the world. "There is a misperception of assets and opportunities in the world and a misalignment of how we invest our time and money in the kind of future we all say we want," Clinton said in closing the conference. "We need to close the gaps between what we feel and what we see, and between what we say and what we do." Clinton announced he will hold his first CGI-Asia meeting in Hong Kong on December 2-3 and will host a youth version of it at the University of Texas at Austin in February.

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