Environmental Issues

The climate change, in the last few decades has been accelerating at a pace not seen before or anticipated, is not in dispute. Studies have revealed that the majority of people, even from localities which would be considered remote, are conscious of and concerned about climatic change and its effects (The Pew Global Attitudes Project, 2006). Blames have been kicked in all directions over who is responsible for the climatic change, with most fingers being pointed at the heavily industrialized countries led by the United States and China. Ironically, the residents of these two major polluters are the least worried about global warming (The Pew Global Attitudes Project, 2006). Climate change has been accompanied by serious challenges to life on the planet. Numerous famines, floods, hurricanes, disease outbreaks, and even wars have been blamed, whether directly or indirectly, on climatic change. The complexity, gravity and trans-boundary nature of climatic change has made it, now more than ever, to institute mechanisms of governance which involve most, if not all, countries as what happens in one country affects others. This paper sheds light on the main issues in climate change debate, and global environmental governance.

Issues in climatic change debate
Scientists have provided sufficient evidence to support the fact that the prevailing rates of climatic change are the result of human action, and not natural processes or cycles (Pattberg  Stripple, 2008). The environment is getting degraded at a rate not experienced before and the effects of the degradation are evident in increasing instant floods, droughts and famines, disease outbreaks, and other disasters. Unfortunately, the developing, and least industrialized, world has suffered the brunt of these effects. Most of the adverse effects of climatic change have been borne largely by the Third World countries of Asia and Africa. This is because the Third World countries, which are characterized by restricted capital bases and technological challenges, have poorly and weakly-developed adaptation and mitigation mechanisms, which renders them more vulnerable (Granberg  Elander, 2007).

The developed world has developed better and more advanced mechanisms of alerting and protecting their people from the disasters resulting from climate change. When disasters do strike, developed countries have the technology and machinery to rescue people and property promptly. As such, the developed world is able to downplay the effects of climate change.

Heavily industrialized countries have stood in the way of the enactment of worldwide and binding environmental governance structures. It is logical for these countries to view any such efforts as a threat to their economies as the industries are the pillar on which their economies stand. Moves which may require them to reduce their gas emissions are thus regarded as threats to their mighty economies. To that effect, the developed economies are unwilling to ratify environmental governance agreements which require them to cut down their emissions. This is best exemplified by the United States, arguably the worlds heaviest polluter, which declined to ratify the Kyoto protocol on climatic change (Ivanova  Esty, 2008). The acrimony which has characterized the climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, which just ended have only confirmed that the developed world thinks of climatic change as the problem of the developing countries. US politics especially, during Presidents George Bushs regime, have flowed against the current of scientific studies and findings that the world will soon be over. In trying to protect US industries and for his political expediency, George Bush opposed efforts to check industrial emissions and reduce the pace and gravity of climatic change so much so that the American Nobel laureate Al-Gore accused him of obstructing progress (Ivanova  Esty, 2008).

In all, the US and many other industrialized countries are unwilling to make firm commitment to significantly reduce their industrial emissions for fear that such commitment could hurt their industries, and their leaders political image at home. They are willing to continue emitting greenhouse gases and continue preaching to the developing world to conserve their environments. Further, the industrialized countries are too reluctant to empower the developing world to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Environmental governance and law
Mill (2000) observed that justice is the chief part, and incomparably the most sacred and binding part, of all morality. It would be difficult and impractical to dispute the fact the developed world has been most unfair against the developing countries in the face of climate change. Global environmental governance and environmental justice have thus become important subjects in academic circles and in international relations with experts subjecting the existing international environmental governance structures to thorough analyses for effectiveness and structure (Esty, 2008).

Scientists have shown that the industrialized countries are responsible for the largest proportion of greenhouse gas emissions, yet the developing countries pay the heaviest cost for climate change. Twenty-five countries are responsible for 90 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions (Klinsky  Dowlatabadi, 2009). This has raised the debate over whether the emission rights of the industrialized countries supersede the human rights of the residents of the developing countries (Hayward, 2007). The developing world has had to pay for the environmental degradation through deaths and misery resulting from disease, droughts, floods and other disasters.

However, this injustice against the developing world is bound to persist, or worsen, as long as the international law does not institute fair and binding multilateral environmental governance structures to make the countries take responsibility and reduce their emissions.

In view of the differences over how much each country is responsible for in terms of environmental degradation, it is essential that international environmental governance policies integrate an effective way of distributing the responsibility for the worldwide problem. Such policies should aim at making the polluters pay for their impact on the environment, each according to how much harm he or she is responsible for. Such a policy, if enforced fully, would provide the critically-needed disincentive for industrial emissions in the future.

Debates on climate change and environmetal degradation has elicited spirited social and political conflicts. According to Burkeley (2001), at the heart of the politics have been conflicts of accountability over how the consequences of risk can be attributed, controlled and legitimated. Predictably, attempts at arriving at just or fair multilateral agreements to manage pollution and climate change have been marred by political dissonance between the north and the south (Sanwal, 2007). Each has been concerned more about their own interests, instead of the concerns of the larger world (Ervine, 2007). The south is keen on economic development, while the north is biased towards protecting its industries and retaining its industrial supremacy. On a pessimistic note, some scholars have stated that those calling for a world environmental organization need not waste the time and resources as it is not politically realistic (Esty, 2008).

Endless politicking and little action has led to the failure to contain the accumulation of greenhouse gases whose effects include global warming, unpredictable rainfall patterns, rising sea levels, increased instances of sea- and wind-storms among other problems. As it stands, the international environmental governance landscape is a collection of countries and regions, each fighting to protect its own interests.

The institution of effective multilateral environmental agreements leans heavily on the negotiators ability to observe the four principle of international environmental law namely the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, the principle of equity, the precautionary principle, and the principle of sustainable development (Sanwal, 2007).

Tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, overflowing seas and many other natural disasters have confirmed to the humans that nature is not at peace with the human activity. Every human being on this planet is not only responsible for his or her own actions but is also responsible for saving the resources and gifts of nature that have been bestowed upon them by Mother Nature.  However, self interest and human greed has come in the way of humanity. While people are dying due to drought and famines in third world countries such as Ethiopia, developed countries are dumping their excess food supplies into seas. The irony is that the saviors and supporters of so called economic development have forgotten the basic rule of economics, that is, the need to utilize scarce resources to their best capacity to maximize human benefit. Economics does not only teach about profits or losses but also teaches about social costs and social benefits. However, today the mankind has become so greedy that to him only personal and private benefits matter. The global warming that has increased over the years is not only affecting the developing parts of the world but is also contributing to the deterioration of the most developed parts. Hence, it is everybodys responsibility to make their contribution to saving the resources of this world so that they may sustain longer (Hayward, 2007).