For a number of years, there have been concerns that climate change negotiations will essentially ignore a key principle of climate change negotiation frameworks: the common but differentiated responsibilities.
Realizing that greenhouse emissions remain in the atmosphere for a very long time, this principle recognizes that historically:
Industrialized nations have emitted far more greenhouse gas emissions (even if some developing nations are only now increasing theirs);
Rich countries therefore face the biggest responsibility and burden for action to address climate change; and
Rich countries therefore must support developing nations adapt—through financing and technology transfer, for example.
This notion of climate justice is typically ignored by many rich nations and their mainstream media, making it easy to blame China, India and other developing countries for failures in climate change mitigation negotiations.
Development expert, Martin Khor, calculated that taking historical emissions into account, the rich countries owe a carbon debt because they have already used more than their fair quota of emissions.
Yet, by 2050 when certain emission reductions are needed by, their reduced emissions will still add up to be go over their fair share: