There are numerous country rankings that are published according to economic, technological, social, and other factors. One of these was released in late-2007, the Human Development Report 2007/2008 (http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2007-2008/) by the UN Development Programme. In addition to its Human Development Index, the UN focuses on a topical subject each year and provides data for each of its 177 members. This year’s focus is climate change, while last year’s was the global water crisis.

The particular value of these reports is their emphasis on all countries. In this year’s report they note “the world’s poor and future generations cannot afford the complacency and prevarication that continues to characterize international negotiations on climate change.” Already, development focused on climate change is already affecting the poor countries of the world by converting former crop lands to those of more financially lucrative biofuels, like ethanol. Biofuels are potentially less polluting, although a full energy analysis could change that opinion. The resultant is that there may be fewer foodstuffs available, they will cost more where they are available, and those countries processing them will use more valuable water supplies in processing the biofuels. Developed countries may have the resources to do this—poor countries may not.

In developing alternative clean energy sources, government and technology leaders in developed and poor countries alike need to look at the entire equation and balance it off against the take-aways when pursuing a particular technology. Again, according to the UN report, “no one country can win the battle against climate change acting alone. Collective action is not an option, but an imperative.”

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