Sustainable Development
Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
This contributed to the understanding that sustainable development encompasses a number of areas and highlights sustainability as the idea of environmental, economic and social progress and equity, all within the limits of the world’s natural resources.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dghuWWw7fnw
(At a United Nations climate change conference, Martin Khor explains presents how to fairly share the burden of actions to reduce greenhouse gases between industrialized and developing nations considering that the historical responsibility of the climate crisis lies mostly with industrialized nations (known as “Annex 1 countries” in climate negotiation parlance).**Video clip is in link above.
Climate Justice and Equity
Last updated Sunday, October 04, 2009.
For a number of years, there have been concerns that climate change negotiations will essentially ignore a key principle of climate change negotiation frameworks: the common but differentiated responsibilities.
This recognizes that historically:
•Industrialized nations have emitted far more greenhouse gas emissions (even if some developing nations are only now increasing theirs);
•Rich countries therefore face the biggest responsibility and burden for action to address climate change; and
•Rich countries therefore must support developing nations adapt—through financing and technology transfer, for example.
This notion of “climate justice” is typically ignored by many rich nations and their mainstream media, making it easy to blame China, India and other developing countries for failures in climate change mitigation negotiations.
Development expert, Martin Khor, calculated that taking historical emissions into account, the rich countries owe a “carbon debt” because they have already used more than their fair quota of emissions.
Yet, by 2050 when certain emission reductions are needed by, their reduced emissions will still add up to be go over their fair share:
