Former Ireland president Mary Robinson is right to advocate helping those in need due to the very real effects of climate change.

However, we must invest our limited resources wisely, focusing on problems we know to be real and which we can help remedy. For example, we know, with 100% certainty, that poor people and poor nations are affected by climate change today. According to the United Nations, one million children are at risk of starvation right now largely because of the drought in the Sahel region of east Africa. Yet the UN has not been able to meet its fundraising targets to help save these people. This is because, of the roughly $100bn spent each year in the world on climate finance, only 5% goes to helping people affected by real climate change now; 95% of it is devoted to controlling the global climate decades in the future.

Even if it were possible to control climate – and an increasing number scientists say it is not – it makes no sense to focus more on what might happen someday than on helping vulnerable people adapt to climate change now. When I spoke with African delegates at the Copenhagen Climate Conference in 2009, they were angry that developed countries seemed to place more value on people yet to be born than those suffering today. Whether one believes humanity is causing problematic climate change or not, whether one is left, right or centre, it should not matter. Today’s approach to climate change is unjust.

Tom Harris, executive director, International Climate Science Coalition, OttawaCanada