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Do developed countries have a greater obligation to battle climate change?

Do developed countries have a greater obligation to battle climate change than developing countries? What do you think?


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Reply 1
Avatar for Rlove95
Rlove95
18
Yeah, I think so since a lot of developing countries are still trying to battle poverty, starvation, HIV and all sorts of other problems that although still found in developed countries, are less severe.
Reply 2
Avatar for mauriceo
mauriceo
My personal opinion:

Yes. Unfortunately, there is no eco-friendly technology that produces energy that is efficient, cheap, and can be deployed in incredibly rural areas. Therefore to grow as a country economically, large amounts of energy from sources such as coal and crude oil need to be used. If you wanted developing nations to seriously stop emitting Co2, then you would have to sacrifice economic growth for sustainability..

Developed nations on the other hand have alternatives and the means to create new methods of clean energy. They have already used enough emission emitting sources of energy when developing, so they should use their scientists and universities to create new methods of clean energy while forcing companies to stop using sources such as coal and crude oil. They can also subsidize for products such as eco-friendly cars and educate the masses about cleaner energy.

I apologize for sounding to preach-y. Not an expert just my thoughts.
There's not really any way for developing countries to tackle climate change without help from developed nations, at which point your question becomes redundant.
Reply 4
Avatar for wofldog
wofldog
Yes.
Original post by MangoFreak
There's not really any way for developing countries to tackle climate change without help from developed nations, at which point your question becomes redundant.


Soft engineering?

Original post by wofldog
Yes.


Please could you explain why you think this?
Reply 6
Avatar for wofldog
wofldog
Original post by Bude8
Soft engineering?



Please could you explain why you think this?


It's our fault, and thereby our responsibility.
Original post by wofldog
It's our fault, and thereby our responsibility.


Climate change is a necessary by-product for developing countries to develop. Let's take the USA and China for example. Does the USA have a greater obligation to help China than another country, say, Turkey, would?
Reply 8
Avatar for wofldog
wofldog
Original post by Bude8
Climate change is a necessary by-product for developing countries to develop. Let's take the USA and China for example. Does the USA have a greater obligation to help China than another country, say, Turkey, would?


Firstly, climate change is only a 'necessary by-product' because there aren't any fuels/power sources which are as cheap and readily available as fossil fuels whilst also being carbon-neutral.

From a purely pragmatic, statistical vantage point, obligation to fight climate change should be proportional to a country's contribution to climate change (carbon emissions). Incidentally, the countries with the highest carbon emissions are (with a few exceptions - India, for example) also those with the highest GDP.
not really, we're all in this mess together and if there are countries like china pumping pollutants into the sky, then clearly there are no real rules here until they change their ways. I'll argue for stopping climate change when the other competing countries do equally.
Reply 10
Avatar for Rakas21
Rakas21
21
Original post by Bude8
Do developed countries have a greater obligation to battle climate change than developing countries? What do you think?



Obligation is too strong a term here.

I support the existence of anthroprogenic long term global warming (for those doubters i'll point out that this winter was in the top 10% of warmest winters in England following the 10th warmest July - England continues to warm) and i generally support the 'green agenda'. With that being said i am a capitalist and not willing to surrender jobs and growth so prefer reinvesting revenue accrued from resource exploitation and ideally a Carbon Tax to replace business rates and green consumer taxes.

With regards to your point i think that a states first duty is to its people and would point out that people like Elon Musk are leading the way in building greener technology, not only that but there are cases where warming can produce a benefit even if Africans starve as a result (2C warming in England produces longer growing seasons for grapes, melons ect..).

Given how flaccid the UN has proved to be on this matter i think the best chance we have to reduce emissions is for the developed world to produce and sell abatement technology like nuclear plants and electric cars. The developed world via trade will accrue sufficient wealth or perhaps even education to rival western innovation.
Reply 11
Avatar for No Man
No Man
15
No, seeing as the China, the USA, and India are the biggest contributes to climate change (even though the latter two are still developing)
India could improve its contribution by copying China and restricting its birth rate (although you could say the cultural bias/prejudice of not keeping girls does just that).
(edited 10 years ago)
Reply 12
Avatar for Rakas21
Rakas21
21
Original post by No Man
No, seeing as the China, the USA, and India are the biggest contributes to climate change (even though the latter two are still developing)
India could improve its contribution by copying China and restricting its birth rate (although you could say the cultural bias/prejudice of not keeping girls does just that).


The OCP was not a good idea. The Chinese labour force will start to collapse by 2040 and given their lack of adequate pensions and welfare, that will cause big problems. India simply needs to get their birth rate under 3.
Reply 13
Avatar for kumon
kumon
16
Yes, everyone has to play their part in combating it. Developed countries produce the most waste and consumption so they should definitely be at the forefront.
Reply 14
Avatar for No Man
No Man
15
Original post by Rakas21
The OCP was not a good idea. The Chinese labour force will start to collapse by 2040 and given their lack of adequate pensions and welfare, that will cause big problems. India simply needs to get their birth rate under 3.


It is a good idea for the long term (i.e 100+ years from now) because it will enable China to be sustainably rich. You can't be sustainably rich with 1.35 billion people, which is 600 million people more than the combined population of the USA and EU.
Same goes for India if they want to be sustainably rich, but it's behind China in that sense currently.
Everyone has a greater obligation to mitigate climate change. Of course, there are some who are worse offenders than others - China, the USA and the EU are responsible for ~60% of the world's annual CO2 emissions - but there's no point playing a blame came because all that will result in is more inaction.
Original post by No Man
It is a good idea for the long term (i.e 100+ years from now) because it will enable China to be sustainably rich. You can't be sustainably rich with 1.35 billion people, which is 600 million people more than the combined population of the USA and EU.
Same goes for India if they want to be sustainably rich, but it's behind China in that sense currently.


Ha. Nobody is 'sustainably rich' in an ecological/environmental/natural resource sense (and sooner or later that'll affect economics, too). This age of mass consumption we live in is the epitome of unsustainable, the earth just does not have the ability to sustain this level of consumption (see attached graph) Plus actually the OCP means China is likely to have a very bad aging population issue similar to what is starting to happen now in Japan - which is also unsustainable.

jpg_roadEcologicalRuin-520x393.jp.jpg
Reply 17
Avatar for No Man
No Man
15
[QUOTE=Bulbasaur;46695583]Ha. Nobody is 'sustainably rich' in an ecological/environmental/natural resource sense (and sooner or later that'll affect economics, too). This age of mass consumption we live in is the epitome of unsustainable, the earth just does not have the ability to sustain this level of consumption (see attached graph) Plus actually the OCP means China is likely to have a very bad aging population issue similar to what is starting to happen now in Japan - which is also unsustainable.

jpg_roadEcologicalRuin-520x393.jp.jpg

Fair enough, sustainably rich wasn't the best terminology. However, the time until resources are depleted will be even shorter if highly populated nations like China and India achieve the same level of consumption as the USA/EU (China is already the largest energy consumer, despite being nowhere near as developed as the USA/EU overall).
Having a very large ageing population isn't a good thing in itself, but once the large ageing population dies, the population will decrease significantly (as needed).
(edited 10 years ago)
Reply 18
Avatar for Rakas21
Rakas21
21
Original post by No Man
Fair enough, sustainably rich wasn't the best terminology. However, the time until resources are depleted will be even shorter if highly populated nations like China and India achieve the same level of consumption as the USA/EU (China is already the largest energy consumer, despite being nowhere near as developed as the USA/EU overall).
Having a very large ageing population isn't a good thing in itself, but once the large ageing population dies, the population will decrease significantly (as needed).


You assume though that we won't develop the technology required to offset that or move to greater resource abundance. Between innovations like Thorium nuclear, nuclear fusion and space mining i'm much more confident that we won't hit the brick wall in resources, not least because we only extract from the top 2 miles of the crust generally and there are tonnes of oil and gas ect.. If China and India match western food efficiency they'd also be fine.
Reply 19
Avatar for No Man
No Man
15
Original post by Rakas21
You assume though that we won't develop the technology required to offset that or move to greater resource abundance. Between innovations like Thorium nuclear, nuclear fusion and space mining i'm much more confident that we won't hit the brick wall in resources, not least because we only extract from the top 2 miles of the crust generally and there are tonnes of oil and gas ect.. If China and India match western food efficiency they'd also be fine.


The key resource that is most scarce is drinkable water. China and defiantly India won't be able to supply their 3 billion population, unless they get cracking big time on desalination technology. Australia and areas of the USA are already having water issues, even though their population sizes are negligible in comparison to India and China.
(edited 10 years ago)

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