For a number of years, there have been concerns that climate change negotiations will essentially ignore a key principle of climate change negotiation frameworks: the common but differentiated responsibilities. This recognizes that historically:
Industrialized nations have emitted far more greenhouse gas emissions than developing nations (even if some developing nations are only now increasing theirs) enabling a cheaper path to industrialization;
Rich countries therefore face the biggest responsibility and burden for action to address climate change; and
Rich countries therefore must support developing nations adapt to avoid the polluting (i.e. easier and cheaper) path to development?through financing and technology transfer, for example.
This notion of climate justice is typically ignored by many rich nations and their mainstream media, making it easy to blame China, India and other developing countries for failures in climate change mitigation negotiations.
Development expert, Martin Khor, calculated that taking historical emissions into account, the rich countries owe a carbon debt, because they have already used up what would be considered their fair quota of emissions between 1800 and 2008 and while they will emit less up to 2050, they will still be way over their fair share:
However, rather than continue down the path of unequal development, industrialized nations can help pay off their carbon debt by truly helping emerging countries develop along a cleaner path, such as through the promised-but-barely-delivered technology transfer, finance, and capacity building.
In this update, additional videos, including from Martin Khor, as well as additional charts similar to above, have been added to explore this further.
Read full article: Climate Justice and Equity
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