If the notion of having the developing world pay off a carbon debt by paying for the lion's share of mitigation and adaptation is somehow anti- pragmatic, then I agree that it should not be implemented regardless of whether it is just or not.
However, if the developing world can pay the debt, it's a quite reasonable thing to do and it would address China's justice argument. With reparations, you are asking a defeated country to pay a huge debt, and that can give you a failed state, but currently the developed world is in relatvely good shape. With the debt of slavery, the decendents of slaves just don't have the power to press their demands, so it's all just blue sky for now. But obviously China is a player in the global warming negotiations, so their view of what constitutes a just settlement must be somehow addressed. On Jan 1, 4:48 am, "[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote: > > Yeah, but industry today and in the future can also develop positive > > technogies. What's so magic about past emissions vs future emissions? > > For past emissions, there is nothing we can do about them. We can just > count up liabilities. > > So, we can merely make up an overall balance for the past. We cannot > do that accurately. Neither the future benefits of developed > technologies nor the future damages of the emissions are known, but we > can make some qualitative judgements about the need to pay > reparations. > > For future emissions, there are more choices. So, there is the > possibility to split the efforts between research on the one hand and > actual emission reduction on the other. I know it's hard to > objectively quantify the value of research, but it's also hard to > objectively agree on a price for carbon. So, why not just use a > commonly agreed value for any given year (eg each 20 Euros of > qualifying research and development spend counts for one tonne of CO2 > in 2010)? > > > Nobody intends to cause harm by emitting CO2, regardless of when they > > do it. This applies both to past and future emissions. How could > > ignorance of the consequences possibly be a defense? > > In murder cases vs car accidents the intention makes a big difference > for the punishment. And so does ignorance of consequences; here in the > Netherlands there is a case where a boy was locked up in a container. > He died and the defense lawyers make a great deal of the fact that > their clients did not know that the boy would die. > > > Happens all the time. If a person who you are suppose to inherit from > > have debts when they die, you have to pay the debts from their estate > > and you get what is left of the estate. > > You are right that this applies to eg the debt of countries, but even > then countries do in fact default or are forgiven debt incurred by a > previous regime often enough. > > With financial debts, there is of course a formal agreement about the > value of the debt and countries mostly receive money in exchange for > incurring the debt liabilities. So, China may now hold one trillion of > US treasuries. The US received something in return and there are > written agreements how much needs to be paid back by when. > > Climate debt seems to me more comparable to war reparations or efforts > to amend for the evils of slavery. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange
