Where in the World is Global Warming a Priority?
Nicolas Loris /
Not in the small island nation of Vanuatu even though its government lists addressing global warming as a top priority. Take one of Vanuatu’s residents, Torethy Frank, who asked a researcher for the Copenhagen Consensus Center, “What is global warming?”
Her bigger concerns?
Torethy and her family of six live in a small house made of concrete and brick with no running water. As a toilet, they use a hole dug in the ground. They have no shower and there is no fixed electricity supply. Torethy’s family was given a battery-powered DVD player but cannot afford to use it.
Three of Torethy’s four teenage children have never spent a day in school. The eldest attended classes on another island, which cost Torethy and her husband 12,000 vatu ($110) a year, but she now makes him stay home because “too many of the kids at the school were smoking marijuana.”