In: Economics
major greenhouse gases are - CO2, Methane and Nitrous oxide. these have been increasing over the past decade. Who is responsible?
Developed nations - they are putting efforts to control pollution and they blame developing nations for the rising pollution.
Developing nations point out - developed countries emit for luxury lifestyle whereas developing countries emit for survival.
Rich countries are rich right now because in the past they industrialised themselves by polluting on high scale ( without restrictions) and now that they have everything they expect the developing countries to not industrialise ( or to industrialize in a way that causes less pollution - which is expensive ).
Historically, the largest polluters are - U.S and EU.
pollution depends on the number of population in a country. highly polluted country should expect high pollution. developing nations like India and china have high population and hence high pollution as well.
we should consider emission per person in order to determine which country is polluting the most.
the general norm is - higher wealth indicates higher carbon footprint . this implies that richer countries are producing higher per person pollution.
developed nations are in a better position to take responsibility because they have the resources, high technology, educated work force etc. they can introduce low cost solution to spread in the world.
developing nations should engage in the climate change programme and do their part and not depend on developing nations only,.
need of the hour is to stop blaming each other and start the research programme and start implementing it.