Esther Duflo

The climate activists are worried about international institutions hogging it, and the rich countries are worried about developing countries' governments using it for their own purpose.

So here's a simple solution.

Send it straight to people.

We know how to do it.

The infrastructure is already there.

Chief of all here in Africa, where almost everyone has a mobile money account already.

There are more than 100 randomized controlled trials of cash transfer programs that show that people use the money well.

And moreover,

The money not only is used well, but it also helps resilience.

For example, in Zambia, when people received about $12 a month in support income, not only did it increase their consumption on average, but it removed the ups and downs that they get with drought and flood usually.

Here in Kenya, people used a universal basic income that they had to finance, first, a better roof over their head, and second, solar panels to power a fan, a pump or a cell phone, thus increasing resilience and increasing productivity.

For some countries, which are very poor, there is enough damaged money to fund the UBI for everyone, such that nobody has to live under the poverty line.

For a richer, middle-income country, there is enough to fund a sort of insurance where no one needs to work when it's 35 degrees outside.

Finding ways to reliably collect money to pay for our moral debt to the world's poorest citizens would do a lot to repair the trust between the West and the rest.

And it is badly needed because the reality is that the future of climate mitigation is in the countries that are today poor.

Even if the OECD, even if the US, Europe manage to reduce their emissions, unlike the countries of Africa, India, et cetera, don't get into a crazy trajectory, the climate fight will be lost.

So the future is here.

And it can only be done if there is trust.

So what we need is really a new grand bargain about climate mitigation and adaptation.

What we need is a situation where every poor country is entitled to the damages that our continued emissions impose on them.