Development, Power, and the Environment by Md Saidul Islam

Author:Md Saidul Islam [Islam, Md Saidul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138952591
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2015-09-08T00:00:00+00:00

9 Climate Politics

Power and Development in Mortgaging the Planet

Introduction

Climate change is real, and human beings are responsible for a substantial part of it. It is putting our planet into peril, resulting in, among other far-reaching impacts, the loss of biodiversity, disaster vulnerabilities, and millions of climate refugees.1 Currently there are about twenty million climate refugees, and this number will increase to fifty million within the next few decades (McMichael 2008). The world was expecting a conclusive and successful climate deal to be sealed during the Copenhagen talks in December 2009. However, a lack of consensus over issues including the character of differentiated responsibilities, financial support, technology transfer, trade subsidies, and trade sanctions hindered the progress of a successful deal. Drawing on the genealogies of climate politics from the Kyoto to Durban conferences, this chapter examines some key obstacles for a climate pact between developed and developing countries, delineating the role of power and development in mortgaging the planet in the age of disasters.

The history of national environmental movements and international cooperation related to climate change can be traced back to the first wave of environmentalism during the period of industrialization in the form of literary appreciation of nature (Guha 2000). This was followed by a second wave of environmentalism in 1970s, which was a result of different environmental cries (Gould and Lewis 2009). Since the 1970s, climate policies and politics have been evident in various talks and declarations, such as the Stockholm Declaration in 1972; followed by the Montreal Protocol in 1987; the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in 1992; the Kyoto Protocol in 1997; the Gleneagles Dialogue in 2005; the Bali Road Map in 2007; the United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNCCC) in Copenhagen in 2009; the 16th Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Cancún, Mexico, in November 2010; and COP17 from November 28 to December 9, 2011, at Durban, South Africa. The 2012 UNCCC, COP18/CMP8 (the 18th COP to the UNFCCC, plus the 8th session of the COP serving as the meeting of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol) took place in Qatar from November 26 to December 7, 2012. The Republic of Korea hosted a ministerial meeting to prepare for COP18/CMP8. Such ministerial meetings are a tradition in the UNFCCC negotiations and are instrumental in facilitating high-level discussions on central issues in the weeks before a COP.

The front page of the New York Times on July 8, 2009, reported that President Barack Obama placed “climate change front and center” on the agenda during a G8 meeting in July 2009 at Italy. The report noted that the meeting “demonstrated again the most vexing problem in reaching a consensus on climate change. … While the richest countries have produced the bulk of the pollution blamed for climate change, developing countries are producing increasing volumes of gases” (P. Baker 2009). The poorer countries feel that the demands placed on them to prioritize protecting the environment before pulling themselves out

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