OPINIONS
16 Obiter Dicta
Climate debt
» continued from page 8
than enforcement. Mary Ellen O’Connell, Research
Professor of International Dispute Resolution, argues
in Enforcement and the Success of International
Environmental Law that environmental law is “less
well-suited to enforcement that other areas of international law.”
Damon Matthews, a researcher at the Concordia
University in Montreal, recently published a study in
Nature Climate Change, where he attempts to quantify the amount of climate debt different nations owe
to our planet.
Matthews says the United States has benefited
economically from polluting the global environment and the costs are experienced by countries
across the globe. Even though China has a bad reputation for carbon emissions due to being one of the
world’s biggest production giants, Matthews argues
that the United States is largely responsible for emitting huge amounts of carbon. He estimates that the
“United States is a clear leader among debtor countries, with historical CO2 emissions that have consistently exceeded the world per-capita average.”
However, the United States is also among several
countries that have donated money to the UN Green
Climate Fund (GCF) —to help with the cost of climate adaptation and damages in vulnerable countries. Though critics argue the funding—valued at
approximately ten billion dollars—does not cover the
immense damage caused by environmental pollution,
the Green Fund is a seemingly positive step in the
right direction for international environmental law.
The UNGCF was created as a financial tool of the
UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) in 2011. Its role is to make financial contributions to attaining the environmental mitigation
and adaptation goals of the international community
in developing countries.
Furthermore, the recently successful Dutch class
action emissions case is a significant step forward in
a nation’s legal recognition of policing emission targets. Dutch Law firm Pulussen Advocaten used the
research of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) as evidence. IPCC is a group of scientists, supported by the UN, which urged all countries
to meet specific emissions targets to help fight global
warming.
The Dutch emissions case win in court, coupled
with the implementation of the UN’s GFC fund, signifies a strong recognition of the costs of climate debt,
and an attempt by the international community to
control environmental damage before it’s too late. u
t humbs down
Donald Trump’s continued flirtation with a US presidential run.
ê ActionAid activists call for countries to pay their climate debt. Photo credit: actionaid.org