[audio:http://wamcradio.org/EarthWise/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/EW-01-17-14-Climate-Injustice.mp3|titles=EW 01-17-14 Climate Injustice]
As nations around the world grapple with the challenges of climate change, traumatic events such as the devastating typhoon in the Philippines can focus our attention on the complex issue of climate injustice.
There is nearly universal scientific consensus that human activity is changing the climate. Many nations that have contributed least to the problem stand to suffer the most.
Small equatorial countries, island nations, and low-lying countries with sea coasts face growing dangers of powerful tropical storms, historic droughts, and rising oceans. No country is immune to the effects of climate change, but many of the least-developed, poorer nations are especially vulnerable.
This issue has become a major sticking point at international negotiations on climate change. Developing nations are demanding that their developed counterparts take responsibility for their legacy of greenhouse gas emissions, and address the losses and damages incurred in the most vulnerable nations.
There is no legal mechanism for these countries to seek compensation and, in any event, even relatively wealthy countries such as the United States don’t have the financial wherewithal to provide it. Nevertheless, countries such as Bangladesh, the Seychelles, Kenya and the other members of the alliance known as the “Group of 77” argue that the developed nations have a moral obligation to shoulder the cost of the pollution they have emitted since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
Climate change continues to be a source of extremely difficult technological, political, economic, and ethical issues.
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Growing Clamor About Inequities of Climate Crisis
Photo, taken on September 27, 2009, courtesy of Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. Support for Earth Wise comes from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, NY.