When developed countries pledged in 2001 to contribute $2.9 billion to assist Least Developed Countries (LDC) to implement their National Adaptation Programs of Action (NAPAS); they gave only $400 million. Africa's 34 nations out of 54 form the largest membership in LDCs. Europe's determination to provide $ 10.8 billion to developing countries in order to facilitate climate change "deal" can at best be described as corruption of the highest order. Developed nations have taken to using the tactic of dangling money that they never deliver as a negotiating tool. It happens during G8; WTO and now COP 15 meetings where pledges are made in the name of the poor but never get to be fulfilled.  

African countries and negotiators in COP 15 must be aware of this old trick. Africans too are aware that their sons and daughters in Copenhagen are negotiating at a disadvantage; they use measuring tools not developed by them - but by those who dangle money to them. Images of poverty are thrown at their feet to induce them to think short term and compromise national core interests over global ideological secondary interests. Of strategic importance to all is that those left at home; in individual African countries must be proactive to seek to adapt to climatic changes be they human induced, cyclical or simply due to position of our solar system in the vast universe.   

Climate change debate must not degenerate into a fight between the already developed and emerging economies using poor nations as pawns. Pollution by industrialized nations is real; human conflict over resources is real; climate change is real; we should not allow ourselves to fall into the Malthusian trap mind frame and suspend the abilities of human knowledge to address challenges that confront society. Sober ways to mitigate the impact of industrialization on environment are urgently required but not bribery. Developed nations must stop hiding behind money.