climate change, greenhouse gas, EU european union, europe, portugal, european court of human rights, wildfire, carbon taxes, china, india, USA United States of America
Beginning in the Industrial Revolution era, developed countries particularly in the European Union have contributed to a greater part of the heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions. Developing countries have a significantly lower footprint but they bear an equal or greater brunt of the forest fires, drought, floods, and intense heat waves. Recently, six Portuguese citizens filed a case against 32 European countries in the European Court of Human Rights, accusing the nations of their leniency in addressing the human-caused climate change crisis. A win in this case is likely to drive developed countries into scaling up their climate change mitigation efforts. It has lingered in the minds of many as to whether developed countries should assume greater responsibility for climate change, and the answer is in the affirmative, considering their contributory scale.
[...] Besides, their industrial activity leaves developing countries at risk of natural disasters. Winning the human rights case at the European Court of Human Rights is therefore essential. It will establish a framework for the development of a fund that will enable developing countries to rebuild and offer compensation to citizens after a disaster. Besides, these countries should invest in environmental management initiatives meant to offset their enormous carbon footprint as a means of achieving sustainable development. References Langevin, J., Harris, C. B., & Reyna, J. L. (2019). [...]
[...] Assessing the potential to reduce US building CO2 emissions 80% by 2050. Joule, 2403-2424. Paddison, L. (2023, September 27). "Truly a David and Goliath case": Six young people take 32 countries to court in unprecedented case. CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/27/europe/portugal-climate-lawsuit-human-rights-court-intl/index.html Sommer, L. (2021, November 11). Developing nations say they're owed for climate damage. richer nations aren't budging. NPR. [...]
[...] A win in this case is likely to drive developed countries into scaling up their climate change mitigation efforts. It has lingered in the minds of many as to whether developed countries should assume greater responsibility for climate change, and the answer is in the affirmative, considering their contributory scale. In 2017, there were deadly wildfires that raged across Portugal, destroying 500,000 hectares of land while killing 100 people (Paddison, 2023). Responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions was established under the Earth Summit in 1992, whereby countries were required to pay carbon taxes based on their carbon-dioxide equivalent arising from productive activity in national boundaries (Sommer, 2021). [...]
[...] Individuals opposed to the need for European countries to assume greater responsibility for the climate change crisis argue that national averages could be misleading (Langevin et al., 2019). They assert that within the middle and low-income countries, there are nations which rank highly in emission rates. They also quote the global inequality report of 2022 which indicates that there are within-country inequalities which render the natural averages misleading (Langevin et al., 2019). These arguments notwithstanding, it is important to consider the industrial activities of developed nations and the economic power that they hold. [...]
APA Style reference
For your bibliographyOnline reading
with our online readerContent validated
by our reading committee
