Spirituality and Ecological Hope

Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:

Unless the North comes to grips with its responsibility it will be difficult to come to an international consensus by which all of us can contribute to halting the degradation of the environment, and certainly stopping the development of developing countries is not the answer.

Ah yes, the international conversation on how to cut carbon dioxide emissions is going to get very interesting. These words come from Munir Akram, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the United Nations and chairman of the G77 [Group of 77 developing nations] in New York, quoted today in Reuters.

You see, the ‘developing’ world, those countries left out of the industrial development of the wealthy nations, don’t like being told that they must bear the responsibility for the emissions spewed by those rich countries as they made themselves, well, rich — often at the expense of the poor. They don’t want to be told that they cannot develop because the industrial and post-industrial countries have fouled the atmosphere and fueled the global warming crisis.

George Bush wants them to, and the fact that poor countries were not included in the Kyoto Protocol is one reason he gives for rejecting it. Kyoto was woefully inadequate in its targets and the mechanisms for meeting them, but it was a start — the first attempt at an international regimen to reduce carbon emissions.

It runs out in 2012 and so far international talks to get a post-Kyoto agreement are not going very far. Bush refuses to participate in that effort also.

Akram makes an important ethical point. The economies of some poor countries are beginning to grow and therefore they are producing more greenhouse gas. Now, are they supposed to simply stop that, when they were not the ones to create the situation?

How the question is resolved will have a great deal to do with whether or not an effective post-Kyoto agreement can be negotiated.

The G77 issued a statement after the meeting referred to in the Reuters article in which they state: “The developing countries contribute the least to environmental degradation but are affected the most.” They are affected the most because they are suffering the most deleterious impacts of climate change right now — floods, desertification, shrinking glaciers on which whole communities depend for water, lack of technology to increase energy efficiency because of lack of development and poverty, and on and on — so many reasons built into this unjust global economic system.

An example of the problem — the nastiness between the US and China. The US says it will not abide by Kyoto if China doesn’t, and China is not part of the agreement. Meanwhile, China’s emissions are growing exponentially and they are fueling their economic expansion with the dirtiest fuels of them all — coal. China says it will not abide by international standards if the US does not, and like any adolescent, the US says it will not play if China does not.

Reuters had another article on their Planet Ark site in which Sir Nicholas Stern, author of the ‘Stern Report,’ the one that talks about the economic impacts of global warming, spoke like a parent trying to talk some sense into the children. He says when he goes to China he tells them the US is doing stuff, and when he comes to the US he tells them China is doing stuff.

It kind of comes down to something like this, from Reuters:

President George W. Bush refuses to have any part in a new treaty that does not include the major developing nations. They, in turn, refuse to commit to serious greenhouse gas emission cuts unless the US does likewise.

“We shouldn’t underestimate the resentment that India and China and the other developing countries feel on this issue,” Stern said. “They say ‘you guys stuck it all up there … and now you are asking us to solve your problems’”.

You see what I mean.

Approaching this from a moral or ethical point of view — does not the one who has done the deed need to take responsibility for it? Now that does not mean that the global community shouldn’t do something to stop the growth of coal-fired power plants in China. This is crucial. But saying, “stop it,” won’t stop it. Only creating a regimen that makes this economically feasible for China, developing energy efficient technology and clean energy alternatives on a massive scale, with the financial assistance from rich countries, will do it.

But the onus is on the carbon emitters of the past 150 years. We are the ones who must lead by making the drastic changes required of our own economy and way of life.

[tags] carbon emissions, kyoto protocol, G77, coal-fired power plants, climate change and developing countries[/tags]