Carbon Sinks, Forests And Climate Change

For a number of years, there have been
concerns that climate change negotiations
will essentially ignore a key principle of
climate change negotiation frameworks: the
common but differentiated responsibilities.
This recognizes that historically:
Industrialized nations have emitted far
more greenhouse gas emissions (even if
some developing nations are only now
increasing theirs);
Rich countries therefore face the biggest
responsibility and burden for action to
address climate change; and
Rich countries therefore must support
developing nations adapt —through
financing and technology transfer, for
example.
This notion of "climate justice" is typically
ignored by many rich nations and their
mainstream media, making it easy to blame
China, India and other developing countries
for failures in climate change mitigation
negotiations.
Development expert, Martin Khor, calculated
that taking historical emissions into account,
the rich countries owe a "carbon debt"
because they have already used more than
their fair quota of emissions.
Yet, by 2050 when certain emission
reductions are needed by, their reduced
emissions will still add up to be go over
their fair share:
However, rather than continue down the
path of unequal development, industrialized
nations can help pay off their "carbon debt"
by truly helping emerging countries
develop along a cleaner path, such as
through the promised-but-barely-delivered
technology transfer, finance, and capacity
building.
So far however, rich nations have done
very little within the Kyoto protocol to
reduce emissions by any meaningful
amount, while they are all for negotiating a
follow on treaty that brings more pressure
to developing countries to agree to
emissions targets.
In effect, the more there will be delay the
more the poor nations will have to save the
Earth with their sacrifices (and if it works,
as history shows, the rich and powerful will
find a way to rewrite history to claim they
were the ones that saved the planet).
These issues are explored in more depth
here.