Climate Change: The new fault line

The COP26 summit was underway, with countries pledging to up the ante in fighting against climate change. The world leaders also promised and announced plans that would enable their respective countries to go carbon neutral. But the actions have not kept up with the promises made based on past records. The nations have shifted their goalposts time and again or have shunned away from taking responsibility altogether. The picture on the climate crisis looks similar to a frame from the popular web show Money Heist. The gang members had differences of opinion, and then they would pull out their guns and point at each other. The same seems to be happening with the policy framing of climate change. Developed nations are putting the onus on the developing while the developing nations feel it to be an injustice and a bit unfair to them and their economies. They blame the developed nations for the mess that we are in as they were the ones to be where they are today due to using a great deal of energy obtained using conventional sources having high carbon footprints.

If you look at the data from Global Carbon Project for yearly emissions in a million MtCO2 from the year 1960-2019, you will find four developed countries being featured in the top 10 of the list. Another data point looked at is emissions per capita, in which you will have four developed nations featured in the list. This indicates that though there has been a decrease and show decreasing trend in per capita emissions or emissions in general of developed nations, they still remain above or at par with the developing nations. So, it is not only their responsibility to continue the course correction that they are doing. Instead of putting the onus on the developing nations, they should lend a helping hand by sharing technologies and incentivizing developing nations to shift to renewable energy sources.

Image Credits: UNCTAD report ( Based on Global data from Global Carbon Project)

According to the Center for Global Development, the developing nations are responsible for 63 percent of the CO2 emissions, with China leading and India being a distant second. The simple reason being these countries have developing economies, and hence the major chunk of energy production more or less comes from the traditional sources, which increases the carbon footprint. The high dependence on these methods is because of the relatively cheaper technology cost and cheap raw material. The developed nations requesting or rather lecturing the developing nations to switch to renewable sources is not just hypocritical but also lacks common sense. This is where the Catch-22 case comes in for developing nations to switch to renewable sources. They require technological advancement and huge capital to start with, for both of which economic growth is a pre-requisite first which then relies on the conventional sources of energy in this case.

The above discussion might be painting the developing nations as victims and the developed ones as aggressors, but the truth always lies in the middle. The fact of the matter still is the emissions of developing nations can't be overlooked. It is in their self-interest as there have been studies showing that climate change impacts developing countries more, owing to their socio-economic conditions compared to developed nations. Hence, instead of shunning their responsibility and living in the past, they should look forward to what a sustainable future has to offer.

Climate change should have acted as a reason for the world to be more cohesive and collaborative. But instead, it has just done the complete opposite. The nations have been divided along a different fault line, resulting in policy paralysis. I think the problem lies in the fact that we are asking the wrong question. Instead of asking "Who is to blame," we should be asking, "What should we do to fix it." Looking on the "brighter side" we can at least hope to get inducted in "Dinosaur's Hall of Fame" in no time if we can't get our act together.

Cover Image Credits: United Nations IPCC report 2021