Who’s responsible?

This story first appeared on the UKYCC UN blog.

After a long first day at the UN climate conference I had a couple of beers but decided that I would be responsible and refrain from getting too drunk in front of negotiators and fellow youth delegates.

Our base, and that for a large proportion of the young people from around the world her ein Bonn, was the UKYCC stall (see right). Responsibility seemed to be a thread that intertwined itself into everything we worked on during the first day.

It all sprang from a press conference yesterday morning which featured representatives from three large NGOs – Oxfam, WWF and Greenpeace. During the press conference Oxfam announced the findings of a new study they have conducted. They have found that 60% of emissions reductions are currently due to come from developing nations. This means that through various channels (reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing renewable energy, adapting land use, limiting deforestation etc.) developing nations are doing more than developed countries to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases.

This is surprising for a few reasons. First, developing nations often have low overall emissions, or lower emissions per capita (i.e. lower emissions compared to the size of their population) than developed countries. Many developing countries are not signed up to emissions reduction targets under the current global deal on climate change, the Kyoto Protocol, whereas many developed nations are.

Second, in many ways developing countries have fewer means than developed nations. They are often poorer and stricken with social, health and other issues to a far worse extent than other countries.

Third, developing countries are, historically, far less responsible for climate change than the developed ones. Most emissions to date have come from big, rich industrialised countries. This balance is shifting as the economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China (or BRIC countries) boom, but so far developed nations are by far the biggest culprits.

I witnessed first hand something I have only read about before – the sense of a relative lack of effort by wealthy countries and big economies. It also became clear over the course of the day that no matter how much we want to focus on countries which are responsible for the situation we find ourselves in, a huge amount of emissions over the next couple of decades will come from the BRIC countries. Getting them to be part of a solution will be crucial, even if it does not reflect their historical responsibility.

But today’s announcement by Oxfam put a new spin on things. It shows that many smaller, less wealthy countries who have other priorities, and who often have fewer financial or political resources at their disposal are somehow putting the rest of the world to shame in terms of reducing emissions. If nothing else, this should provide a good example and motivation to do better for many developed nations who are deciding how ambitious they should be.