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Contributions from
the Column
Facts and trends
WFP opposes strict WTO rules
G8 cancels debt and cuts aid
Climate protection after Kyoto
EU looks for its role in development policy
Africa suffers from lack of harmonisation
KfW Development Bank gains
Spam mails impede development
Aid does not reach the poor
Trade: Renminbi appreciation would have no effect
07/2005
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[ Climate protection ]
“The rich have to bear the burden”
So far, developing countries are under no obligation to reduce their emissions of climate-damaging emissions. The Kyoto Protocol, which has been in force since February, assumes that poor countries are not responsible for the greenhouse effect. However, CO2 emissions from rapidly developing countries such as India or China are increasing quickly. Therefore, from 2012 on, reduction obligations for selected developing countries will be on the agenda in the negotiations over the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, which began this year.
According to Sunita Narain, head of the Centre for Science and Environment in New Delhi, these negotiations must lead to a solution that reduces the risk of climate change without placing unfair burdens on poorer countries. Climate change can only be prevented if global economic growth slows down – and the industrialised countries have to bear the costs rather than expecting developing countries to do so, the leader of the non-governmental organisation said at an event held jointly by the Wuppertal Institute and the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin in June.
For countries such as India, there are currently two avenues open in the climate negotiations for the period after 2012: They could follow the USA’s example and reject any binding commitment, a policy that would add up to “get rich first and clean up later”. Or they could get involved in the negotiations with the aim of freezing the CO2 emissions of all countries at different levels. In Narain’s view, neither avenue is acceptable: the US method will lead to a climatic catastrophe, while limiting emissions according to the current economic power would disadvantage the poor. She considers discussing obligations of developing countries illegitimate as long as countries such as the USA and Australia refuse to cooperate in multilateral climate agreements.
“We require an emission rights system that is based on a country’s per-capita emission,” said Narain in Berlin. This kind of agreement would grant all countries different pollution rights depending on the size of the population. Similar to companies trading emissions within the framework of the Kyoto Protocol, developing countries could sell unused rights to industrialised countries and, at the same time, be encouraged to invest the proceeds into renewable energies.
Narain calls for more moral arguments and less technocratic reasoning in the debate on environmental protection. The rich countries, she says, have to acknowledge that, compared to their responsibilities, they have not done enough to prevent climate change: “You have to bear the burden.”
Friederike Wyrwich
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