Modified:
22 Feb 2010
by Dhc
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DEBATE: AS DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ARE SET TO SUFFER THE MOST FROM CLIMATE CHANGE, SHOULD IT BE THE DEVELOPED COUNTRIES DICTATE THE TERMS OF GLOBAL ACTION ON THE ISSUE?
Posted by: Global Youth Panel
Karma:
552
At the moment the developed world, particularly the United States of America, dictates the terms and pace of global action on the issue of climate change. However it is not the developed world who will suffer as a result of inactivity and slow progress in reducing emissions, rather it is the developing world, and particularly the poorest within these countries. These countries and people have very little say over what is done to prevent climate change. These countries should therefore have much greater voice about what is done to combat climate change; agreements should be through the UN process rather than outside it as the Copenhagen accord was, and negotiations should give all developed nations the ability to state what they need. This should also include the developing nations being able say what they want the developed nations to do rather than just being dictated to by the developed world.
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AS DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ARE SET TO SUFFER THE MOST FROM CLIMATE CHANGE, SHOULD IT BE THE DEVELOPED COUNTRIES DICTATE THE TERMS OF GLOBAL ACTION ON THE ISSUE?
They are the ones who need to reduce their emissions.
It is the developed world who needs to reduce their emissions in order to prevent climate change. As the major emitters of CO2 the action has to in large measure take place within these countries boundaries. If the concept of sovereignty is to be upheld it makes sense that these countries are the ones who take the lead by reducing emissions within their own countries and building this action within international agreements. It simply makes sense that it is the countries that produce most emissions who are the ones to reduce their emissions. These countries are most likely to reduce their emissions if they are following an agenda chosen by them rather than one that is chosen by someone else. Developing nations know better than the developed nations the impact of climate change on the developing world but this is no reason to believe that they would be any good at reducing emissions in the developed world.
It is not only the developed world that needs to reduce its emissions. Both China and India are major emitters of CO2 along with some other industrialising developing countries. Their emissions are also growing much quicker than the developed world. Moreover while the developed world have often already picked the low hanging fruit in terms of reducing emissions many developing countries are very inefficient in how they use energy and have a lot of scope to improve efficiency and at the same time reduce emissions.Likewise, several of developing countries have the core of problem: the main oil sources, as Venezuela and middle east.
What do you think? Vote on this point below.
AS DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ARE SET TO SUFFER THE MOST FROM CLIMATE CHANGE, SHOULD IT BE THE DEVELOPED COUNTRIES DICTATE THE TERMS OF GLOBAL ACTION ON THE ISSUE?
Developing world is reliant on money from the developed world.
The developing world wishes the developed world to pay them to mitigate the impact of climate change and so that they can adapt to the changes brought by climate change. This however gives the developed world control of the purse strings, effectively giving them control of the agenda on how to spend this money – or even to give it out at all.
It is however the developing world who should know best how to spend any money that is to go on mitigation and adaptation in the developing world. They know what the impacts on the ground are, where is most likely to be affected and so what infrastructure may need to be built, which communities need to be moved. These kind of decisions should not be made in Washington, Brussels or Tokyo.
What do you think? Vote on this point below.
AS DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ARE SET TO SUFFER THE MOST FROM CLIMATE CHANGE, SHOULD IT BE THE DEVELOPED COUNTRIES DICTATE THE TERMS OF GLOBAL ACTION ON THE ISSUE?
Not possible to have developing nations dictate the terms of action.
Unfortunately the developing nations, particularly the poorest among them, have no way to influence the terms of action and very little way to persuade the developed world to give up control over the agenda. They control none of the cards; they are not the ones who need to reduce, they can’t provide anything to persuade others to reduce their emissions, they don’t have any issues the developed world is particularly interested in that they could do a quid pro quo for. Essentially they can talk and occasionally threaten to pull out of talks and do little else.Even if it was possible for the developing nations to have control of the agenda and set the policies for how to fight climate change they would be in a very poor situation from which to do it. They do not have the bureaucracy needed to create global plans for fighting climate change, they equally could not be the ones who provide the verification processes.
Although the developing nations may not have the ability to dictate to the developed nations what actions should be taken this does not mean that they cannot play a key part in framing what the world should do. Under the UN system each nation is able to say no, meaning that an agreement needs the agreement of all. So the developing nations can shape the agenda by deciding between them first what actions they would say no to and what possible actions they could agree to. This would limit the debate about what actions will be taken to areas that are acceptable to the developing world.
What do you think? Vote on this point below.
AS DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ARE SET TO SUFFER THE MOST FROM CLIMATE CHANGE, SHOULD IT BE THE DEVELOPED COUNTRIES DICTATE THE TERMS OF GLOBAL ACTION ON THE ISSUE?
Most knowledge is present in the developed countries.
As most knowledge is present in the developed countries, these countries should know best how to tackle international problems. They have the resources and the expertise to research the problems and the various possible solutions. This in turn means that the developed world would be much faster than the developing world to find the best options for tackling climate change.
AS DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ARE SET TO SUFFER THE MOST FROM CLIMATE CHANGE, SHOULD IT BE THE DEVELOPED COUNTRIES DICTATE THE TERMS OF GLOBAL ACTION ON THE ISSUE?
Developing countries cannot agree
Unlike the developed countries, which is a relatively small group of countries, the developing group of countries are made up of many diverse countries from all parts of the world with many diverse view viewpoints. In between them, there are also various sub-groups, each lobbying for their own agenda. Each group of countries within the general label of 'developing' have different definitions of 'success','action',etc. when it comes to tackling climate change. Besides, there are also developing industrialising countries like India and China which stiffly resist drastic climate action. With such differences, it is highly unlikely that the developing countries as a whole will be able to dictate climate action. Indeed, with so many sides to doing the same thing, it may become more complicated than it already is.
AS DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ARE SET TO SUFFER THE MOST FROM CLIMATE CHANGE, SHOULD IT BE THE DEVELOPED COUNTRIES DICTATE THE TERMS OF GLOBAL ACTION ON THE ISSUE?
i agree
i agree to the statement
AS DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ARE SET TO SUFFER THE MOST FROM CLIMATE CHANGE, SHOULD IT BE THE DEVELOPED COUNTRIES DICTATE THE TERMS OF GLOBAL ACTION ON THE ISSUE?
Democracy
There has never been any form of democracy in the international arena. The United Nations General Assembly perhaps comes the closest, with one member one vote, but in reality the power rests with the Security Council while the General Assembly is a talking shop with no power. This means that democracy is not likely to suddenly break out in the international sphere when it comes to climate change.
The developed world constantly pushes the concept of democracy as being the best form of governance and human rights as being essential. If these nations believe in this then they should allow democracy to occur in the international sphere, particularly on areas like climate policy. The developing nations outnumber the developed nations both in terms of number of nations and in terms of the total population living within them. Either way of deciding democratically what to do about climate change should result in the developing nations having the main say.
What do you think? Vote on this point below.
AS DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ARE SET TO SUFFER THE MOST FROM CLIMATE CHANGE, SHOULD IT BE THE DEVELOPED COUNTRIES DICTATE THE TERMS OF GLOBAL ACTION ON THE ISSUE?
Developing nations suffer.
The developing nations of the world are the ones who are suffering from climate change, and will suffer the most. This means they are the ones who understand the need to tackle climate change. The developed world, and particularly public opinion in the developed world, sees climate change as a long term problem that will not become an immediate problem for at least twenty years or so. It is therefore questioned why we should do anything now. In the developing world however the impacts are already being felt in the form of more extreme weather, more droughts leading to crop failures etc.
AS DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ARE SET TO SUFFER THE MOST FROM CLIMATE CHANGE, SHOULD IT BE THE DEVELOPED COUNTRIES DICTATE THE TERMS OF GLOBAL ACTION ON THE ISSUE?
Have the greatest potential to increase their emissions.
While the developing world does not at the moment produce much in the way of emissions so has no need to reduce them this also means that they have the greatest potential to increase their emissions in the future as they develop. This means that they have to be involved and agree to the path taken to reduce emissions by the developed world if they are not to make the same mistakes as the developed world and head into industrialising to create an economy in which they produce large amounts of CO2 emissions.
AS DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ARE SET TO SUFFER THE MOST FROM CLIMATE CHANGE, SHOULD IT BE THE DEVELOPED COUNTRIES DICTATE THE TERMS OF GLOBAL ACTION ON THE ISSUE?
Developed world’s methods are failing.
They have barely had a chance to succeed. The EU’s carbon market is the only example we have so far and it failed not because of the system but rather because governments fiddled the system by allocating too many carbon credits. Less credits means higher prices for carbon so providing an incentive to emit less. This incentive has not yet kicked in.
It is precisely because the developed world has had control of the terms of global action that the developing world needs to get a chance. The developed world’s solutions have failed to reduce emissions in the 13 years since the Kyoto conference that they should not be ones to dictate the terms of global action. The preferred method of the developed world is market based. However cap and trade of emissions has so far not succeeded. In the EU the prices of CO2 emissions fell when trading started because countries had given out too many credits.
What do you think? Vote on this point below.
AS DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ARE SET TO SUFFER THE MOST FROM CLIMATE CHANGE, SHOULD IT BE THE DEVELOPED COUNTRIES DICTATE THE TERMS OF GLOBAL ACTION ON THE ISSUE?
Developing countries already have an influence.
What is true is that the least developed nations, those that are not industrialising at speed, have next to no influence on the course of fighting climate change. They have strong opinions but no bargaining power. Their only possible way of influencing the action taken to prevent climate change is to say they will not sign up to an agreement – which would likely hurt them more than those offering the agreement.
It is no longer the case that it is solely the developed nations who dictate the course of global action on climate change. The Copenhagen conference showed that the big developing nations have just as much, if not more influence than the developed world. Much of the developed world; the EU, Japan, Russia offered cuts with the possibility of more however they were sidelined and the main actors were one developed and two developing nations: the US, China and India. The conference showed that the developing world – or parts of it - at least has the influence to prevent agreements that they do not want.However these developing nations almost certainly have a potentially much wider influence should they wish to use it. If they were to take the lead in reducing emissions the developed world would be unable to justify not reducing their emissions further.
What do you think? Vote on this point below.
AS DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ARE SET TO SUFFER THE MOST FROM CLIMATE CHANGE, SHOULD IT BE THE DEVELOPED COUNTRIES DICTATE THE TERMS OF GLOBAL ACTION ON THE ISSUE?
Developing countries cannot propose a good agenda for global actions
As i see, many developing countries, particularly in Africa don't even state good terms for their own growth, i don't think they are able to dictate a global action to the developed ones, which have better means to achieve planetary goals
booji
|13:09, 04 February 10
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|13:10, 04 February 10
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|13:15, 04 February 10
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|13:17, 04 February 10
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Global Youth Panel
|14:17, 22 February 10
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|14:17, 22 February 10
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|13:20, 04 February 10
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|13:32, 04 February 10
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Global Youth Panel
|14:17, 22 February 10
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