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Climate change injustice[]

Those most responsible for climate change are not the same people as those most vulnerable to adverse climate change impacts. An equitable approach to climate change may be practically necessary to achieve a globally acceptable climate change solution.

Resources[]

  • Climate Change Calendar from World Development Movement highlighting the injustice of climate change. According to WDM, "The poorest countries in the world, with 738 million people, make effectively no contribution to climate change, but it is those same people who face the worst consequences. 160,000 people are already dying every year due to climate change related diseases and billions will face drought, floods, starvation and disease."

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Random facts[]

  • Collectively the G8 nations, which represent just 13 per cent of the world's population, are responsible for around 43 per cent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. That's climate injustice, because climate change impacts most severely upon the world's poorest people. Source: Friends of the Earth [1] [2]
  • By the end of 8 January 2007, the average person in Britain will have already produced as much CO2 as the average person in the world’s poorest countries will all year. (The 50 Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are those judged by the United Nations to have the lowest indicators of socioeconomic development.)
  • By 10 January the average UK citizen will have already emitted as much CO2 as the average Kenyan will in a year. In sub-Saharan Africa an estimated 375,000 people have already died in the 21st Century due to illness caused by climate change.
  • By 9 February, the average UK citizen will have already emitted as much CO2 as the average Indian will in the whole year [3]. If the whole world emitted CO2 at the same rate as India, there would be no climate change problem. India does not currently contribute to climate change.
  • By 6 March the average UK citizen will have already emitted as much CO2 as the average person from Ecuador. If the retreat of glaciers continues 50 million people in Latin America will lose their dry season water supplies.
  • Over 84% of the world’s population live in countries that emit less CO2 than Britain. In 1830 Britain began emitting more CO2 than the current sustainable level of 1.1 tonnes of CO2 per year. Britain currently emits 9.6 tonnes of CO2 per person per year. The average person in India emits 1.04 tonnes of CO2 per year.
  • In Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda alone there are at least 7,800 deaths a year from climate change-related diseases. The 2004 floods in Bangladesh left 1,000 people dead, 30 million homeless, caused £4 billion in damage and lessons were suspended in 18,000 schools.

Source: (for the above six) - World Development Movement

Research[]

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Global News 2007

Wanted pages and external links

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Related topics


References

  1. Friends of the Earth, June 7 2007
  2. Friends of the Earth, September 24 2007
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