Bangladeshi media, represented by The Daily Star, has gotten ahead of the curve on the consequences of climate and is really fighting for the claim of social justice in the Copenhagen Conference, now well on its way. This morning, December 7th, 2009 the Daily Star published an op-ed piece that is being published in over 56 newspapers in 44 countries setting up the dilemma that negotiators have to face in working out something feasible, so that there’s more than just an agenda in teh works in Bonn, next year.
As The Daily Star, the Guardian, the Miami Herald and other newspapers reports,
“At the deal’s heart must be a settlement between the rich world and the developing world covering how the burden of fighting climate change will be divided and how we will share a newly precious resource: the trillion or so tonnes of carbon that we can emit before the mercury rises to dangerous levels.”
But the normative import of the discussion and, quite possibly the real sticking point in any negotiation is that of differential burdens.
Again,
“Social justice demands that the industrialised world digs deep into its pockets and pledges cash to help poorer countries adapt to climate change, and clean technologies to enable them to grow economically without growing their emissions. The architecture of a future treaty must also be pinned down with rigorous multilateral monitoring, fair rewards for protecting forests, and the credible assessment of “exported emissions” so that the burden can eventually be more equitably shared between those who produce polluting products and those who consume them. And fairness requires that the burden placed on individual developed countries should take into account their ability to bear it; for instance newer EU members, often much poorer than “old Europe”, must not suffer more than their richer partners.”
If anything this conference will let us know what we can expect in the next round. If only for that, the interested reader should pour over the dailies.
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