As the primary contributors to carbon emissions and other factors which contribute to climate change, Western nations should bear the financial burdens associated with mitigating its effects -ASIF GANI (2018)

Introduction

In this essay, I have tried to establish a hypothesis that the Western nations should bear the majority of financial burdens in pertinent to the mitigating of the effects of climate change since these nations are more considered to be the major contributors towards carbon emission and other factors leading to climate change. By Western nations, we are referring only to those countries which are economically developed, such as Western Europe, North America and Oceania (Australia and New Zealand only), whose per capita income, consumption and gross domestic products (GDPs) are greater than that of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. We have highlighted the economic implications of climate change on different geographies.

Economic implications for climate changes

Climate change is an inevitable process, but over the past century, the pace of change has increased at an alarming rate due to the growing use of fossil fuels in more advanced and industrialised countries (Cassara and Prager, 2005; Henderson et al., 2017). Climate change is a very critical global issue as several adverse effects are found to be occurring in the global climate (Henderson et al., 2017). Several environmentalists and scientists have claimed that the rapid development of human societies is largely responsible for such a change in the global environment. However, the rate of such societal developments has not occurred evenly throughout the world. It is seen that the societies have mainly developed rapidly in Western Europe, North America, Japan, and Oceania. On the contrary, the under-developed and the developing countries, where human societies and urbanisation have comparatively progressed at a slower rate, are mostly situated in Africa, Asia, and Latin America (Harris, 2010).

The impacts of climate change are generally measured in terms of damages and destructions caused by natural calamities that are occurring more frequently in a year across different parts of the globe. Such damages are not only restricted to the loss of human and animal lives, but they can also be measured in terms of greater economic loss, for example, the value of the houses, buildings, roads and other properties that may have got damaged due to flooding or landslides. So, it can be deduced that some of the human actions in different societies are causing harm to the environment at large. Various scientists have linked that such environmental damage by certain human actions is actually leading to rapid climatic change. The change, however, retaliates on the human society in various forms such as global warming leading to extreme atmospheric conditions - temperature rising, melting of glaciers in the sub-polar regions, sea-level rising, severe drought in the desert and semi-arid regions due to very low rainfall, heavy snowfall in the northern hemisphere, frequent storms leading to flood in the coastal regions, and rise in the vector-borne diseases (Sinnott-Armstrong, 2005; Cassara and Prager, 2005; Council on Foreign Relations, 2013).

The entire global community has immensely been challenged with the issue of addressing climate change at the beginning of the 21^st century (Cassara and Prager, 2005). Cassara and Prager (2005) have also claimed that if there is no change in the present greenhouse gas (GHG) emission patterns, it will help in raising the global temperature causing the reduction of agricultural output, water supply, and biodiversity in several areas of the world. Such a rise in temperature is also expected to bring catastrophic disaster at different regions of the world, especially in the coastal areas and the islands.

Need for a sound climate change policy to compensate for the economic losses

To compensate for the economic losses due to climate change, several policies have been framed by the panel of policymakers of different countries. The introduction of the cap-and-trade system, which is a relevant part of the policies relating to climate change for minimising the emissions of greenhouse gases, has raised concerns (Caney and Hepburn, 2011). One of the major concerns for many is that the system invokes a price to be paid for maintaining the natural environment. Since this mitigation strategy makes use of the trading principles for reducing the emission; some critiques apprehend that the rich might avoid taking their moral responsibilities as they can afford to pay off the cost (ibid.). However, the important question is whether this strategy is good enough to control the overall emission level. Many environmentalists have encouraged the use of this system, as they consider that this might be the only way to curb the level of emissions (ibid.).

Climate change: Why the Western nations should bear the financial brunt of mitigating the present day’s environmental crisis?

In this section, we have analysed the major reasons to find out whether the Western nations should take the maximum responsibilities to mitigate such adversities in the long run. IF YOU WANT TO READ MORE, KINDLY DROP ME A MAIL -asi_gani@hotmail.com