Climate change, and "per capita" atmospheric space

I hope 2009 will be a year of intense debates, discussions and, more importantly, actions on the environment.

I suppose I am not the only one thinking along those lines. Here is Carla Wise, for instance.

India's prime minister, too, is on-board. But, his view immediately makes it clear how developed and developing countries might find it difficult to get along on this:

Addressing a special session of the summit of the Asia Europe Meeting devoted to sustainable development, Dr. Singh said climate change was threatening the environment and the prospects for development and a holistic approach was needed to deal with the problem. “We cannot do so by perpetuating the poverty of the developing industries, or by preventing their industrialisation.” He said the principle of common but differentiated responsibility had to be the “cardinal principle of negotiations” in the search for pragmatic solutions within the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The Prime Minister added that the principle of convergence of percapita emissions of developing countries with advanced developed countries was “catching the imagination of the international community.” The world had to recognise that “each citizen of the world has equal entitlement to the global atmospheric space.”

While he calls for convergence, the real divergent issues are embedded right in his speech:

• Need to uplift millions of poor from their abject poverty--possible, rapidly, through non-carbon energy?


• Will pressuring poor countries on limiting carbon usage essentially mean perpetuating poverty?


• When looking at "per capita", is there any scope for convergence? Is Singh way too optimistic here?


• If we look at aggregates, is there scope for convergence?


• Will countries really buy into this idea of "differentiated responsibility"?

2009 will show that most of the people on the planet are worried about climate change--except for some nutcases, all of whom seem to be living only in the US :-(

The politics of climate change will, however, get horribly nasty before we begin to see any glimmer of real convergence.