One insidious thing about climate change is that regardless of where greenhouse gases are being released, the damage is spread out across the entire planet.

So while the astonishing wealth generated by U.S.-based

corporations like Chevron and ExxonMobil will end up concentrated in our very wealthy country,

the harm they cause disproportionately affects low-income and island nations that contribute very

little to greenhouse gas emissions and don't have anywhere near the money they need to

withstand climate change. From KERA in Dallas, this is Think. I'm Chris Boyd. About a year ago,

the sustainability wing of the journal Nature published a study that estimated the wealthy countries

of the world owe the poorer ones a climate debt of $192 trillion.

That money broadly represents the way as rich economies profited from industries that have pumped

huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at the expense of unmitigated climate

damage in island and developing nations. The economy of the United States has grown enormously as a result of our investments in

climate damaging industries, but as my guest will tell us, we have mostly refused to take

financial or moral responsibility. Van Newkirk is senior editor at the Atlantic, where you can

find his article, What America Ows the Planet.

Van, welcome back to think.

Thanks for having me.

It's always a little disheartening to be reminded of how long people in positions of authority to do something about it have understood emissions were warming the planet.

What did you learn about this international convention that met in 1991 in Virginia?

So, 1991 was, for all intents and purposes, the beginning of our global policy movement to deal with climate change.

And even back then, in 91, when folks were getting together, when maybe the average

American might not have known exactly what global warming and climate change meant, at that

convention, the people there, they were not arguing about whether our missions caused climate

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