MOTION #88: THIS HOUSE BELIEVES
THAT DEVELOPED COUNTRIES HAVE A HIGHER OBLIGATION TO COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE THAN
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Climate change and
global warming are the result of massive emissions of ‘greenhouse gases’ such
as CO2, CFCs and nitrous oxide. This has been a problem due to the exponential
increase in the burning of fossil fuels throughout the industrial revolution
which began in the 19th century. Climate change is a phenomenon which will have
a global impact, although of course nations will be affected to different
degrees. Although the problem is a global one, developed nations who are
heavily industrialised usually release more greenhouse gases per capita than
developing ones. In attempting to address and solve global warming, many have
asked whether developed nations - which led the industrial revolution and are
responsible for most of the greenhouse gases now in the atmosphere - should
bear a greater responsibility for combating climate change.
This debate has been stimulated in large part by the Kyoto Protocol signed
in 1992, which exempted developing nations such as China and India, from the
same emissions-reductions obligations as developed countries. The principle
underlying Kyoto is known as "common but differentiated
responsibilities", which continues as a centerpiece principle for those
calling on Developed countries to assume a greater responsibility. China,
India, and other developing countries call for recognition of this principle,
while many developed countries argue that conditions have changed as developing
countries have begun to industrialize and pollute more rapidly in recent years.
There are many questions involved in this public debate. The question of who
should bear the burden of cutting emissions in order to prevent climate change
has been a central reason for there being no new major binding agreement along
similar lines to the original Kyoto treaty. The United Nations Climate Change
Conferences at Copenhagen and Cancun did not live up to their billing and did
not result in a renewal of Kyoto or the creation of a replacement with
agreements being in more minor areas such as creating a ‘Green Climate Fund’ at
Cancun. The most recent United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban was
slightly more successful with agreement that Kyoto would continue until a new
agreement is finalized although not all original parties to the agreement are
willing to sign up, Canada for example has left the treaty. More importantly
there was agreement on the ‘Durban Platform’ from developing countries like
China and India that they will be a part of a legally binding treaty to be
negotiated by 2015. This therefore opens the door to developing countries
taking more responsibility to combat climate change.
Pros
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Cons
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Developed countries have the greatest capacity to
combat climate change. It is the developed
world that has the capability to combat climate change. It is they that have
most to cut per capita. More importantly it is these developed countries that
have the research capabilities to come up with the necessary technology to
make the economy greener, to produce renewable energy, to mitigate against
the effects of disasters. Moreover these same places are the countries that
have the finance available to fund these activities; not only funding the
research into the solutions but also the financial resources to put them into
action all around the world. Poor countries turn to the powerful financial
centres such as London and New York to finance large projects, the same will
be the case with projects to mitigate climate change. Finally these countries
have the expertise to put these new inventions and projects into practice;
they have the experts to work out the best places to build, to advise on
building, and make sure the project does not have unintended side effects. As
the nations with the greatest capability, developed nations have an increased
responsibility to act.
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While developed countries are more capable of
contributing to combating global warming, their obligation to do so does not
increase. The ease with which a party can accomplish a task does not
determine its responsibility to do so.
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Developed countries have a duty to lead by example. The most developed nations are also the most powerful
in the international community; they have a duty to lead by example. Even if
India and China are rapidly rising the developed countries between them are
still the most powerful economies. If developing nations perceive that more
developed ones are not acting to combat climate change, they will have no
imperative to act. This is because some developing countries such as China or
India want to maximize their development capacity in order to compete with
developed countries. They are only likely to cut carbon emissions if those
developed nations they compete with do so first – that way their attempt to
compete is not jeopardised. The climate change talks that have achieved
relatively little have shown this to be the case – China has only shown
willing to do a deal if the United States commits itself first.
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China and India, although developing nations, are
actually very politically powerful. Both are G20 nations, and the G20
includes both developed and developing nations. They have sufficient
potential for leadership due to their size and economic power and therefore
could equally be an example to other nations. These countries would be a
better example to other developing countries as the methods they use to
tackle climate change would be directly applicable to other developing
nations whereas action by developed nations is much more likely to take
advantage of high tech solutions that may not be universally applicable.
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The developed world is mostly to blame for climate
change. It is through heavy industrialisation that developed
countries are developed – since they contributed more to climate change, they
have a greater obligation to resolve it. Climate change has largely been
caused by long-term emissions by developed countries. While China is now the
world’s biggest CO2 emitter and other developing countries emissions are
rapidly rising historically the vast majority of emissions have been from
developed nations. From 1900 to 2004 the United States produced 314,772
million metric tonnes of CO2 compared to China’s 89,243 million metric tonnes
and while India now produces more CO2 Germany over the same period emitted
three times as much. As CO2 can remain in the atmosphere for a long time,
about 50% will be removed within 30 years, but 20% or more may remain for
thousands of years, the history of emissions is as relevant as current
emissions.[2] Since they contribute more of the damage, and since each nation
has a responsibility for the harm it has caused, developed nations have an
increased obligation to combat climate change.
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It was unknown that emitting greenhouse gases caused
climate change until the 1980s – over a century after the industrial
revolution. Developing nations were not initially aware of the damage they
were causing, therefore the harm was unintentional. It is unfair to
retrospectively punish these nations for something that was unknown to be
harmful when it was done. The responsibility should therefore be based upon
either current emissions or at most emissions from the period in which the
damage caused was known and emissions could have been reduced.
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The biggest emitters per capita will have the most
impact when they reduce emissions. Developed countries
emit the most greenhouse gases per capita, in 2008 the US emitted 17.9 tonnes
compared to China’s 5.3 tons per person, and therefore a reduction from these
nations is both easier and has a greater impact than from developing nations.
Countries with high CO2 emissions can reduce these emissions through
lifestyle changes that do not reduce citizens quality of life, for example
simply by reducing the amount they drive – walking or going by bike when only
going a short distance – whereas for developing nations reductions either
have to work out ways of doing things more efficiently or accept that living
standards will be affected as most people’s lifestyles are already low
carbon, the challenge is to keep it that way while improving quality of life.
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Many developing nations who are exempt from the Kyoto
Protocol are in fact using more fossil fuels per capita than developed
nations who are attempting to cut down. Countries with large endowments of
oil for example are profligate in its use so Qatar emitted 49.1 tons per
capita. While China’s emissions of 5.3 tones is much less than the United
States there are other developed countries that produce similar amounts such
as Switzerland at 5.3 and Israel at 5.2 tons per capita. Nations such as
China and India could make an equally meaningful contribution due to their
sheer size but also because incorporating green energy into the industries in
a still developing nation is easier than trying to change a developed one.
These counties will need to build new power plants anyway as they experience
more demand for electricity, they might as well make these new plants green.
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Developed countries must combat climate change while
developing countries have more pressing concerns. Developing nations need to be allowed to develop
without the burden of emission restrictions. Developed nations have been
allowed to industrialize at whatever pace they wished, and through
industrialization produce emissions. Despite having been polluting the
atmosphere as a result of industrialization since the early 19th Century
developed nations only began comprehensively limiting pollution after World
War II in order to reduce smog through regulation such as the 1955 Air
Pollution Control act and 1963 Clean Air Act in the United States and many
developed countries have yet to regulate their CO2 emissions.
Having had free reign to develop for 200 years the
developed nations need to take responsibility for those 200 years of
irresponsibility while giving the developing world longer to clean up its
act. The developing world at the same time has higher responsibilities that
come first, for example to ensure that there is no one living in poverty. In
India 456 million people live on under $1.25 per day, it is absurd to suggest
that India despite having higher CO2 emissions than Japan, indeed almost
double, should have to reduce its emissions by a similar amount and at the
same time industrialise to pull these millions out of poverty.
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This makes the
flawed assumption that development has to be dirty to lead to meaningful
advances in living standards. This is not the case. In the 19th Century the
developed world had no choice but to develop in a dirty way as there were no
alternative power sources that could provide enough energy. Today there are
numerous green energy sources that are every bit as efficient as the coal fired
power that was used for the developed world’s industrial revolution.
Moreover history has shown that the states that catch
up economically do so by leapfrogging the already developed nations by moving
in to new industries and not making the mistakes made by those who are
already at the top. Thus Germany took a lead in the then new industry of
chemicals by the end of the 19th Century and Japan in Electronics during its
economic miracle after world war II. Newly industrializing countries should
consciously aim to take a lead in new green industries in order to power
their development and can therefore avoid the developing the 19th and 20th
century industrial base that was once necessary.
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While states may theoretically be sovereign and have
supreme authority in practice nations do not exist in vacuum. Due to many
international agreements such as Kyoto Protocol and international bodies such
as UN, countries do have shared legal responsibilities. Many developed states
have already accepted that there are "common but differentiated
responsibilities" having signed up to the Kyoto protocol. This means
that they have acknowledged a shared responsibility for solving climate
change and have accepted that commitments will vary from country to country.
The implication is that this will depend upon historical contributions to the
problem and the ability to devote resources to tackle the problem, both of
which would mean more responsibility for developed nations.
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States have no
responsibility to other states. States are sovereign
meaning they are the supreme authority within a territory, increasingly it is
seen as the people who are sovereign through a social contract where the
government rules by consent of the people but significantly this is still
internal to the state. They are therefore not responsible to other states. If
a state exists to protect and improve the lives of its own citizens then
there is no obligation for any state whether developed or developing to take
on responsibility for combating climate change , all the more so when this
would harm its own citizens interests or wellbeing. Developed countries may
have an obligation to their own citizens to do what they can to prevent
climate change but this obligation is no higher than the governments of
developing states to their own peoples. Otherwise because of state
sovereignty the only obligation that states may have to each other are those
that they enter into freely through a treaty where they agree to bind
themselves however developed states will not enter into a treaty where they
accept a higher obligation to combat climate change because it would be
against their own interests. This is exactly why negotiations towards a
binding treaty on climate change is not getting anywhere.
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While developing countries may be the ones with the
incentive to reduce emissions this does not alleviate the developed world of
the responsibility to be tackling their emissions and taking a lead on
climate change. Someone’s motivations to act does not change their
responsibility to do so.
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Developing countries
have the biggest incentive to reduce emissions. Developing countries are expected to be the countries
which will suffer the worst effects of climate change, comparatively more
developing countries are outside temperate zones so will be harder hit by
rising temperatures and changes in precipitation patterns therefore they have
the greatest responsibility to change. Developing countries are suffering
with increasing problems as a result of climate change such as crop failure
and the spread of deserts, these are exacerbated by high rates of population
growth meaning more people need to be catered for on a shrinking resource
base.
Unfortunately it is the case that countries that are
less affected by climate change or who have the wealth to prevent the
problems it causes are not going to take the lead in reducing emissions
because they have no incentive to do so. Especially in democracies
politicians have to respond to the wishes of their electorate and the
electorate’s priority is never going to be people who are thousands of miles
away and they will likely never meet. As it is developing countries who are
in harm’s way of climate change it is the responsibility of their politicians
to respond to their electorate and act to prevent climate change or reduce
its impact.
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Individual action will never work without government
intervention and government intervention requires some countries to take
responsibility. Individuals will take the easiest option or the cheapest
option. At the moment these options involve more pollution. For example cars
are the easy option for transportation – and without government intervention
to create comprehensive and cheap public transport systems individuals will
never switch away from their cars. Businesses will take the cheapest way to
make their products, which means polluting unless the government imposes a
cost on them for doing so. Individual action therefore first needs prompting
by government if it is to have an impact beyond a small minority.
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Pinning
responsibility on nations is wrong and unhelpful. The very slow progress being made by the international
community in its conferences to come up with a framework to prevent climate
change shows that relying on the nation state, either developed or
developing, is not the way forward.
Instead individual action and changes to lifestyles are the way
forward – all governments should be doing is encouraging this by making it
possible to choose a low carbon lifestyle and if necessary penalizing the
highest emitters.
According to Joan Ruddock, former UK Energy and Climate
Change Minister “over 40 percent of the UK's CO2 emissions a result of
personal choices, [so] there is huge potential for individual behaviour
change to lower emissions.” We are already seeing that individual action can
happen. There are many ways in which individuals do a little to prevent
climate change, carbon offsetting is a good example. Individuals can choose
to offset their emissions, either all their emissions or emissions from
individual activities such as flying, by paying for projects that reduce
emissions elsewhere which usually means either funding renewable energy or
tree planting.
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This is not paternalistic because developed states are
the most capable of cutting emissions. Techniques developed by the developed
world will be made available to developing nations, who do have a
responsibility at that point. Moreover that developing nations may have the
capability to create their own solutions to climate change does not mean that
they should have the responsibility to do so. The idea that pinning
responsibility on developed nations will somehow stunt the efforts of
developing nations is absurd. Solutions such as cheap stoves will continue to
be developed regardless because such solutions are beneficial in all sorts of
ways and so it makes good business sense to look for such low cost solutions.
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Developing nations
are just as capable as developed nations of taking on the burden of combating
climate change. By taking on
disproportionate amount of obligation, developed nations intrinsically claim
that developing ones are not capable of finding solutions. This is demeaning to developing countries
by as it assumes that the developing world lacks the creativity and the
innovation to lead the way on solving climate change. This approach is
unlikely to incentivise developing nations to do their own research into
cutting emissions. This will lead to less emission cuts over all as
developing nations see that they are not considered capable of contributing.
This is of course wrong, it is a view taken because the
assumption is that the solutions are technological so the developed world
with its large science and research infrastructure will have to be the ones
to make the breakthroughs. This is however not always the case. Small
solutions can potentially have a big effect in developing nations. For
example changing cooking stoves in the developing world for only $25 per
stove will not only improve health but will also cut emissions. Other low
cost solutions to climate change are just as likely to come from the
developing world as from the developed world.
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The very fact that pollution emissions from one country
affect everywhere is what makes it possible for one country to be more
responsible than another. Countries that have contributed more of the
pollution to the global commons than their fair share should be obliged to
clean up that global commons. While rich nations reductions might be offset
by developing countries increases in the short term in the long run
developing nations will need to reduce their emissions in exactly the same
way. They simply need more time and can take advantage of not being
responsible for the current pollution.
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The economy is a
global system; the solutions need to be global and involve everyone. The world today is globalized and interlinked. It is
not economically viable to expect developed nations to use more of their
resources to combat global warming. The global economy depends on wealthy
developed countries because it is them which create the high demand for the
work performed by developing nations allowing countries like china to develop
based upon exports. Just as the economic system is global as is pollution.
There is no point in a developed country cutting its emissions in half if a
developing nation replaces all those emissions and more. For example China’s emissions are expected
to rise to between 9.7billion and 12 billion metric tons up from 2008’s
7billion. The European Union emits 4.2 billion metric tons so China could
easily offset EU emissions losses even if the EU makes very extensive cuts.
With the world being so linked the responsibility is equally linked it is
therefore not for individual nations or even a particular group of nations to
be considered to have a higher obligation but all nations are equally
obligated to prevent climate change.
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