Climate responsibility

Several "climate responsibility" debates occur, sometimes a debate on "Should developed and developing countries take the same responsibility in dealing with climate change?" is a hot issue in the subfield of "climate ethics" in bioethics.
Phrased this way, the two sides of the debate are:
* Affirmative: Developed and developing countries should take the same responsibility in dealing with climate change.
* Negative: Developed and developing countries shouldn't take the same responsibility in dealing with climate change.

Another formulation for the debate could be: 
Developed should take MORE responsibility than developing countries in dealing with climate change.

* Affirmative: Developed countries should take more responsibility than developing countries in dealing with climate change.
* Negative: Developed shouldn't be required to take more responsibility than developing countries in dealing with climate change.
In Copenhagen, the debate is more along the lines of how much the richer nations should help out the poorer nations, but several advocates from developing nations have accepted responsibility to persuade the richer nations how real the threat is.

The topic of the earlier (less nuanced) debate is: Should developed and developing countries take the same responsibility in dealing with climate change?

Dr. Robert Pojasek of Harvard University and Harvard School of Public Health, in his "Strategies for Sustainability Management" course, that:

Governments should encourage all organizations with activities, products, and services to address their contribution to greenhouse gas emissions using available international standards, such as ISO 14001, and draft standards - ISO 26000 and ISO 51001. Funds should be appropriated to provide training and assistance in creating these programs. Governments should not create policies that are paper tigers with no concrete means for making sure the promised reductions take place. Policy and strategy enthusiasts may not like this idea! It's time to involve the operations folks and get things done.

Thus, the question is parsed in two ways:
* Developing nations IN A SENSE have the same responsibility for the impacts of what they do.
* Developing nations do NOT have equal financial responsibility for mitigating 'received impacts'
Essentially, that is rejecting the question as framed, something philosophers often do.

However, most interested parties tend to agree that no person or group or involved party (nation) has NO responsibility; all involved parties have some responsibility, and different contexts and resources and involvements imply different responsibilities, while quantification of 'the whole bundle' may be difficult, if not impossible.

If those without financial power have a more implied, existential obligation to advocate for their own plights in terms of the entire planet, that is indeed a shared global responsibility on part with shared responsibilities and obligations for global health development.
How Complex or Simple are the Questions?
Should all producers, regardless of where they are situated, be held to the same level of efficiencies with their production?

When asked, many persons tend to side one way or the other in the discussion, but more sophisticated discussants carry the dialogue to a farther level.

For instance, if a person India uses biomass, should that person be expected (even with international help) to maintain a certain level of progress towards clean energy and green, ecologically-responsible living - however that responsibility is configured in one's worldview?
The debate, when sophisticated, is usually about how much pollution a nation like China (and the other BRIC nations) should be allowed to generate IF their production facilities are not as modern as those in the developed world?

With technology transfer, the developing nations could stand to gain a great deal IF they are expected to abide by the same standards of progress AND the international community is expected to help them modernize to the extent required to sufficiently 'green' their industrial and transportation sectors and their buildings. In that scenario, the developing world would profit incredibly, and the intellectual burden on the developed world would be greater, to assume the lead in developing appropriate level green technologies and building scenarios for the developing world.

This could be read as requiring EVERYONE to progress towards greener lifestyles, with the developing nations having less "catching up" to do than the developed nations do, and copying the developed nations imposes additional burdens on the developing nations they would not have if they were to steer their development more responsibly.
The answer seems to be: 'Yes, both need to.' That isn't an opinion, but a simple fact - unless both do it, it is impossible to make enough change - at best delaying the impacts.

* If the developed world continues its current course, even if it fully implements the extremely modestly reductions from Kyoto protocol, it will drive cataclysmic climate change regardless of what the developing world does.
* If the developing world continues to try to develop to a state approximating even the least developed of the developed countries, they would soon exceed all the developed countries' contribution to climate change.
* There are differences in what each should do, but the acceptance of full responsibility must be whole-hearted and complete by all.

See Also
* Climate
* Climate change
* Climate model
*
* Global warming
* Human Activities
* Industrial Revolution
* United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009
* United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
* Climate Conspiracy
* Climate Science Consensus dissident list investigation
* Climate Audit

Main Menu