Wealthy nations caused most climate change, but the poor will suffer most

Wealthy nations caused most climate change, but the poor will suffer most

"Although the richest, most developed countries in the world are overwhelmingly to blame for the catastrophe of global climate change, they are not the ones who will suffer the most from it. Who will? ... the poorest countries.

... For more than a century, the largest emitters of greenhouse gases, in total as well as per capita, have been the big developed nations, most notably the United States and the countries of Europe, which grew their economies by burning fossil fuels and spewing carbon from their factories, homes and cars. Today they still emit carbon and other greenhouse gasses disproportionately into the environment, although other big countries such as China and India have caught up.

Yet even as the wealthy nations drive the world toward ecological disaster, it is clearly the poor countries that will face the gravest consequences and have the most difficulty coping. For instance, low-lying Bangladesh, already battered by increasingly powerful cyclones, could lose 10% of its territory to the ocean within a few decades, displacing 18 million people.

Political instability and violence, influenced in part by droughts and poor harvests, have already driven millions of people from their homes in sub-Saharan Africa and Central America...

So whose problem is this to fix? The simple answer, of course, is that the responsibility for mitigating climate change belongs to all of us: A global problem requires a global solution. We must all change our behavior and our policies."

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