From Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/11/13-4
US ducks ‘moral and legal responsibility’ at UN climate Talks as Global South asks, ‘Where’s the justice?’
Lauren McCauley
Published on Wednesday, November 13, 2013 by Common Dreams
The United States is, per capita, both the world’s wealthiest and most polluting nation. But when it comes to facing its responsibility for the calamity of climate change caused in large part by its outsized emissions, many are left asking: Where’s the climate justice?
The idea of “climate justice”—which transfers the well-known “make the polluter pay” principle to the issue of global warming—is that the wealthiest and most industrially advanced nations have also generated the most emissions and thus should contribute the most financially to the mitigation and reparation funds needed to offset the negative impacts of climate change.
However, as the idea of who should pay and how much has once again taken center stage at the UN climate talks in Warsaw, a leaked copy of an official briefing document on Wednesday confirms that the United States is attempting to shirk their “moral and legal responsibility” of making payments to an international relief fund.
According to the Guardian:
US officials fear that international climate change talks will become focused on payouts for damage caused by extreme weather events exacerbated by global warming, such as the category 5 Typhoon Haiyan that hit the Philippines last week killing thousands of people and causing what is expected to be billions of pounds of damage.
An official US briefing document obtained by the Guardian reveals that the country is worried the UN negotiations, currently under way in Warsaw, will “focus increasingly on blame and liability” and poor nations will be “seeking redress for climate damages from sea level rise, droughts, powerful storms and other adverse impacts”.
Such redress was a hot-button issue at COP18 in Doha, Qatar where U.S. representatives lined up against those from the global South whose repeated calls for climate justice in the form of “climate finance” have thus far gone unanswered.
Continue reading at: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/11/13-4
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