Wildlife Group Presses Poor Nations on Carbon Emissions

Third world countries’ carbon emissions are rising fast, but they’re insistent that they have a right to continue expanding their economies via cheap but dirty fossil fuels as long as their emissions don’t reach the higher per-capita emission rates of industrialized nations.  But, by some reports, countries like China and India may already be surpassing the world’s industrialized powers in terms of CO2 emissions.  Valli Moosa, president of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), told delegates at the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona that poorer nations need to take responsibility.

From Dot Earth:

“It is not good enough for big developing countries to take absolutely no responsibility just because the biggest contributors to climate change are the developed countries,” Mr. Moosa said at the opening ceremony of the congress, held every four years under the auspices of the IUCN.

“America and industrialized nations must lead the way,” he said. “Developing countries like my own must become part of, and abide by, the same set of transparent and enforceable rules,” he said. Mr. Moosa’s comments came ahead of climate-treaty talks in December in Poznań, Poland, that are aimed at pushing forward negotiations on a new global agreement on cutting emissions – and where concerns about allowing emerging economic superpowers like China and India to pollute as much as Western countries is almost certain to be a key stumbling block.

It’s understandable that nations like China and India are putting concerns about carbon emissions on the back burner, since they’re simply trying to improve their economies and by extension, the lives of their citizens.  And, cheap fossil fuels probably seem like the only option for them – after all, that’s how industrialized nations like the U.S. got to where we are today.  But, Moosa is right – developing nations can’t go on as they are without doing major damage to the earth, and we’ve got to give them a better example. It’s definitely time to start showing developing nations that they can be prosperous without harming the environment, and we can only do that by aggressively implementing green energy technology in our own countries.

Link [Dot Earth]
Photo credit: Flickr user Wolfiewolf

We Enjoy Modern Carbon-Emitting Life, and Poor Kids Around the World Pay the Price

The rich developed world has yet to reign in the habits that are contributing to global warming, and guess who’s paying the price: the world’s poorest children. As wealthy businesspeople, tycoons, celebrities and other privileged people enjoy large gas-guzzling vehicles, trips on private jets and other non-sustainable penchants, children across the globe are seeing their futures grow more dismal as each day passes.

From Reuters:

The UNICEF report “Our Climate, Our Children, Our Responsibility” measured action on targets set in the Millennium Development Goals to halve child poverty by 2015. It found failure on counts from health to survival, education and sex equality.

“It is clear that a failure to address climate change is a failure to protect children,” said UNICEF UK director David Bull. “Those who have contributed least to climate change — the world’s poorest children — are suffering the most.”

The report said climate change could add 40,000-160,000 extra child deaths a year in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa through lower economic growth.

Of course, the richest of the rich aren’t the only ones to blame – we as a society are. The western civilized world continues to flourish at the expense of those less fortunate. The United States and China are at the top of the list, producing far more carbon emissions than other countries and showing no real signs of stopping. While the U.S. is starting to take measures that may help decrease carbon output in the future, China has yet to address the problem, and recent reports show that it’s only going to get worse.

Some of the great times that lie ahead for the poor include climate-change worsened malaria, less food and water to go around and an increase in natural disasters. Naturally, these things will affect the entire world, but as always, the poor will bear the brunt of it, being unable to properly prepare and react.

Since most Americans avoid world news and turn the channel when those Sally Struthers ‘feed the children’ commercials come on, it’s doubtful that this prediction will do any good toward reigning in the excessive lifestyle that has helped create this mess.

Link [Reuters]

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons