Global warming is fast spreading its tentacles. Rich developed nations are the biggest culprits of the environment and must pay most of the bill amounting to $50 billion a year, aid agency Oxfam said. The agency has created a global warming adaptation financing index based on the responsibility, equity and capability of each nation.
According to Oxfam, the rich countries such as the Unites States, the biggest polluter in the world, must pay at least 44 percent of the annual $50 billion bill. After the United States, Japan owed 13 percent of the bill, followed by Germany on seven percent, Britain five percent, Italy, France and Canada between four and five percent and Spain, Australia and Korea three percent. The call comes barely 10 days ahead of a crucial Group of Eight (G8) summit in Germany, which has climate change at its core.
The agency also hopes that G8 presidency Germany would set stiff targets and timetables for cutting carbon gas emissions and raising energy efficiency.
G8 countries face two obligations as they prepare for this year’s summit in Germany — to stop harming by cutting their emissions to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius and to start helping poor countries to cope. Developing countries cannot and should not be expected to foot the bill for the impact of rich countries’ emissions,
said Oxfam researcher Kate Raworth.
Scientists have been long warning that average temperatures will rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees Celsius this century due to carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels for power and transport, leading to floods, drought and famine and putting millions of lives at stake.
The United States leads the world in polluting the environment with its carbon emissions. While few quell that by next year boom economy China will overtake the U.S. as it builds a coal-fired power station every four days to feed demand.
Germany, chairing the G8 wants India, China, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa to agree to limit the temperature rise to two degrees this century and to cut emissions by 50 percent from 1990 levels by 2050.
But Washington has already rejected these goals in decidedly undiplomatic terms.
We have tried to ‘tread lightly’ but there is only so far we can go given our fundamental opposition to the German position. The treatment of climate change runs counter to our overall position and crosses multiple ‘red lines’ in terms of what we simply cannot agree to,
the United States said.
Along with the G8 countries, it is the responsibility of all nations, no matter how rich or small they might be to limit their pollution levels. But,the way the U.S. has offered its rejection, scene is ripe for a tense showdown at the summit.
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Via:Reuters