The complex issue of climate change justice

Live Mint , Friday, November 22, 2013
Correspondent :
Perhaps the biggest news emerging from ongoing talks at the climate change conference in Poland is the developing world’s demand for compensation to offset the damage caused by climate change. This comes in the immediate aftermath of the catastrophic destruction caused by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, which has set a strong tone justifying compensation demand from countries that are most vulnerable to climate change. Efforts of delegates at the conference representing the developing world, attributing the increasing intensity of natural disasters to adverse climate change caused by emissions from the developed world, have clearly not gone well with the rich countries.

The US and Europe, among others in the club of rich countries, have been unwilling to negotiate on providing compensation for environmental damage caused by industrial emissions in the West. That said, funding to tackle the menace of climate change has not been totally absent either. With the formal establishment of the Green Climate Fund in 2010, partial efforts began to kick-start transfer of funds from the developed to the developing world to help mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change. This time around in Poland, however, the demand for liability compensation in the context of the historical responsibility of rich countries in causing climate change has raised further complications.

As expected, this has caused much dismay among rich countries, which have flayed the developing countries as engaging in an unwarranted blame game. The rich countries, for their part, have pointed out that developing countries, including India and China, will contribute close to half of the world’s emissions in the coming decades—suggesting the demand for compensation based on historical responsibility is unreasonable. The issue of liability compensation based on historical responsibility is clearly a complex one, and one that primarily involves the question of management of common resources and the accompanying problem of economic externalities. And apart from the primary question of the applicability of retrospective liability to the issue of climate change, the question of what represents appropriate damage compensation is a crucial one.

The standard textbook solution to the problem of economic externalities, as explored famously by Nobel Laureate Ronald Coase and popular American legal theorist Richard Posner, has assumed the possibility of private arbitration efficiently arriving at the appropriate liability compensation amount to account for the magnitude of economic loss imposed on victims. The current scenario with respect to climate change—characterized by the massive amount of stalemate over issues as basic as emission limits—represents a picture that is far different from the ideal. While fruitful arbitration between nations on even basic questions remains a pipe dream, successful negotiations on matters as complicated as estimating liability compensation amounts look unlikely.

The huge vacuum in the sphere of international arbitration, evident in the prolonged history of climate change negotiations, is bound to stall any formidable progress in climate change talks. Since the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992, nations have held 19 rounds of talks followed by much chagrin with very little progress to show. This being the case, future rounds promise more prolonged battles and further worsening climate ties between the developed and developing world.

In all, the world is set to miss out not just on the crucial issue of compensation payments to vulnerable countries for past climate excesses of the developed world. These countries have fully enjoyed the fruits of the industrial revolution paying very little regard to the developing world’s concerns on environment. They have also not addressed concerns about cutting of greenhouse emissions to minimize the impact of human activities on climate.

Moreover, with much of the developed world reeling under repeated crises of public finance and sub-par economic performance, it looks unlikely that the demand for retrospective compensation will be taken seriously by major donors. In fact, even the success of the Green Climate Fund that aims to channel $100 billion a year by 2020 to tackle climate change in developing countries looks like an uphill task at the moment. Till the poor state of international arbitration improves dramatically, the world—and the developing world in particular—is all set to face the consequences of environmental degradation in the near future.

How justified are demands of financial restitution for climate change? Tell us at views@livemint.com

 
SOURCE : http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/7QsDQvBYfNZgWitaVkHXtK/The-complex-issue-of-climate-change-justice.html
 


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