Idle Rambling On Solving The Problem Of Global Warming -- December 13, 2018

As folks may recall, the UN global warming folks want $100 billion transferred to poor countries. Linked earlier. Let me know if you can't find it.

So, how many poor countries are we talking about? I have no idea. Let's start with, how many countries are in the world? According to wiki: 195. A normal bell curve would suggest less than 25% of these countries would be considered poor. Twenty-five percent of 200 = 50 countries. So, the UN wants to distribute, on average, $2 billion to each of 50 countries.

Now, let's see if anyone has come with the world's poorest countries. Well, that wasn't hard. Something called focus-economics has come up with the ten poorest countries. With another click one gets the full list of 123 countries in the survey. Scrolling down the list by GPD per capita, it certainly looks like the list is about 50 countries that could be considered poor and "deserving" of the $2 billion.

That list is actually quite interesting.

Unless I missed it South Korea is not on the list. What? I must have missed it. Oh, there it is. Not "South Korea" but "Korea" and it is high on the list, so one assumes it is "South Korea."

Cuba is not on the list. Would one consider transferring $2 billion to either North Korea or Cuba? I suppose the UN would.

Palestinians are certainly deserving but they are not on the list either, as far as I can tell. But they would definitely qualify.

I assume the $2 billion / country is the first down payment of many to follow.

Venezuela? Sitting on the world's largest reservoir of oil, it is the only country on the list of 123 with N/A or no data for 2018. 

I'm not sure how giving $2 billion to Cuba, Venezuela, or North Korea would help solve the problem of global warming.