Climate change is the result of more than 250 years of carbon emissions by rich nations from the beginning of the industrial revolution around 1760. But the effect of climate change is felt throughout the world and the poor face more damages and losses because they don’t have the infrastructure and technological means to protect themselves from the destruction. The question arises as to why the poor nations should take the brunt of climate change when it is caused by the rich nations. That’s the ethical basis for climate justice.
The poor nations who have a negligible contribution to the accumulated carbon emissions compared to the rich must then be provided with financial support for making necessary structural and infrastructural developments to adapt to the impacts of climate change. They must also be compensated for the damages caused by climate events. That’s what climate justice should do. But what’s the reality?
The issue of climate change was first raised in 1972 at the First Earth Summit organized by the United Nations in Stockholm, Sweden. Twenty years later at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the decision was made to establish the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It came into effect in 1994. In March 1995 the first UNFCCC conference called ‘Conference of the Parties,’ or COP was held in Berlin, Germany. That was COP 1.
At COP 3, held in Kyoto, Japan in 1997 the Kyoto protocol was adopted that required the industrialized countries to cut the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by at least 5 percent below the 1990 levels in the commitment period of 2008 to 2012.
The Kyoto protocol was the first concrete step toward controlling global warming. However, emerging economies such as China and Brazil were not bound by the target and some developed nations including the U.S., Canada, and Russia did not agree to emissions targets. And, the greenhouse gas emissions did not decrease after the Kyoto protocol rather they continued to increase.
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This article was published in the Daily Sun on October 18, 2022. Please read the full article here or here.