Notwithstanding the fact that most states are said to be independent and sovereign and the governments of small and weak countries are usually not bashful in laying claims to this status, global political economy suggests a different story. Apart from financial and political coercion, which can be exercised directly or indirectly by the wealthy and powerful countries through their usual control of the more important global economic institutions, the power of the developed countries is exercised in other ways.
For example, by the mere refusal to participate in the discourse, as was clearly demonstrated by the 2001 withdrawal of the United States from the Kyoto Protocol. ‘While never a leader in the international climate negotiations, US participation was considered central to the effectiveness of the Kyoto Protocol’ (Henrik Selin & Stacy VanDeveer (2009) Changing Climates in North American Politics: Institutions, Policymaking. MIT Press).
Importantly, the capacity of the developed countries to utilise their power to set the agenda on issues of global governance is well known, but particularly obvious where the issue of climate change is concerned.
In dealing with the ethical issues that exist in international environmental relations, Antje Brown and Gabriela Kutting argued that generally the developing countries see climate change as a historical problem and want past emissions to be incorporated into possible emission reduction strategies, but as we shall see, this idea is given short shrift by the developed countries. Developed countries are, however, quite serious about future emissions being taken into consideration. The debate is clearly framed to ensure that ‘today’ is the date from which discussions on equity start and anything that happened before today is excluded from the debate.
Since there is a temporal element to the debate, which is concerned with the present and the future, they argue that, ‘With temporality an issue, it seems illogical that it is not applied in both directions, i.e. past and future. However, this would dramatically alter the commitment and power dimensions of the negotiations. Therefore equity takes on a very subjective meaning determined by the social and power relations of the interplay between developed and developing countries. … Thus agenda-setting power is a major determinant in environmental relations’ (The Environment in Trevor C Salomon and Mark F Imber -2008- Issues in International Relations, Routledge).
In the context of the above and given my intention to deal with the important issue of climate financing in the next column, perhaps at this stage I had better give a more practical example of the nature of the existing power relations between the developed and developing countries as we approach the Climate Summit!
During the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties (COP-15) held in Copenhagen, Denmark in December 2009, there was in circulation a proposal by George Soros, the renowned international business tycoon and philanthropist, for the establishment of a $100 billion assistance fund for poor nations, using foreign exchange reserves issued by the International Monetary Fund. He claimed that this would not add to anyone’s national debt and that poorer countries would win a moral victory by forcing industrial economies to characterise financial assistance as ‘reparations’, and otherwise could demand punitive as well as compensatory damages for past emissions.
Soros’s proposal is based on the contention that since Western developed countries have been largely responsible for the dangerous emissions now in the atmosphere, it is overwhelmingly their responsibility to clean them up. One commentator metaphorically put the case as follows:
‘Imagine you’re a well-to-do person attending a dinner of your peers. The food is top-rate and there’s plenty of it. Course after course is laid upon the table. A group of less-advantaged people has been watching from the sidelines. When the dinner is done, you invite them to join you at the table. After the restaurant staff has served coffee, the bill comes. You and your rich peers insist that everyone now at the table must share in paying the entire bill. If that seems unfair, then you have just understood the position of the delegates from emerging economies now negotiating with their wealthier colleagues from the North over a climate deal at Copenhagen’ (http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/node/518).
But the response of the developed world to this kind of proposal has been no different from its reaction to those who demand some kind of reparations for the damage done by slavery.
The US Special Envoy for Climate Change, Todd Stern, explained that while his country recognises its historic role in putting emissions into the atmosphere, it does not have any sense of guilt or culpability and categorically rejects any demand for reparation. According to him, ‘The United States will contribute to a fund to help poor countries deal with the effects of climate change, but Washington does not see the need to make “reparations” for its centuries of carbon pollution’ (Bond, Patrick (2009) How to cure the post-Copenhagen hangover. www.tni.org/es/node/13021).
Stern’s contention appears to rest on the position that the offending states were not aware of the destructive nature of their actions and that although the US could and would accept that it did make a major contribution to global warming, it cannot be held culpable for its actions.
Of course, as Bond pointed out, scientists have known about climate change since just after the start of the industrial revolution in the late 1800s, and in the early 20th century, physical measurements were showing a striking correlation between greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the earth’s temperature. In the United States, all presidents since at least Lyndon Johnson were warned that climate change was coming. In 1965, Johnson’s panel of science advisors told him, ‘By the year 2000 there will be about 25% more CO2 in the atmosphere than at present. This will modify the heat balance of the atmosphere to such an extent that marked changes in climate, not controllable through local or even national efforts, could occur’ (Ibid).
When Vice President Al Gore signed the Kyoto Protocol on behalf of the United States in 1998, the U.S. Senate made it clear that it would not vote in favour of ratification. ‘Our national climate policy has been dominated for a century by denial, by the political influence of fossil energy industries, and by willful disregard for climate science verging on, if not crossing the line into, gross negligence’ (Ibid).
Perhaps recognising the immediacy of the climate issue and that the statement by Stern is the best one can expect from the offending countries at this stage, Bolivia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Pablo Solon, conceded that, ‘Admitting responsibility for the climate crisis without taking necessary actions to address it is like someone burning your house down and then refusing to pay for it. We are not assigning guilt, merely responsibility. As they say in the U.S., if you break it, you buy it’ (Ibid).
