Who Suffers Most?

Developing vs Developed

The Kyoto Protocol

Copenhagen and the Future


Developing vs Developed

For years developing countries have been trying to bridge the economic gap between themselves and the industrialized world. Bridging this gap means increasing production, trade, and above all, industrialization. Unfortunately, the wealth of nations depends on manipulations of the environment and natural resources to create and/or sell goods. China, for example, could be seen as the country most determined to close the gap. China's significant growth in the second half of the twentieth century led to it becoming the second largest producer of carbon emissions in the world. Leaders in developing countries are concerned that, with caps placed on carbon emissions, their countries will never be able to gain as much wealth and industry as the industrialized world. After all, developed countries produced ridiculous amounts of carbon and had unchecked access to natural resources in order to gain the wealth and power that they enjoy today. A hypocritical situation is then created: the very countries which have destroyed our environment through their quest for wealth and power are now limiting the attempts of other countries to do the same.

Other countries view any limits on carbon emissions as a threat for other reasons. Some oil-rich developing countries, such as Saudi Arabia, will be economically harmed by an attempt to convert to green energy sources. In order to significantly reduce carbon emissions, the world will have to drastically cut its consumption of crude oil and natural gas, Saudi Arabia's main exports. Saudi Arabia, therefore, is trying to rally other oil-producing countries to demand compensation for the inevitable fall in oil exports if a climate change treaty is enacted (Mouawad and Revkin).

However, it does not benefit developing countries to ignore global warming either. Statistics show that with each annual rise in temperature, the progress of developing countries diminishes by two to three percent, while the progress of developed countries remains untouched. As described in the previous page, developing countries already cannot afford the human or economic costs that will come with the progression of global warming. The effects of climate change may do even more to increase the gap between rich and poor by completely ravishing the poorer countries in the world while only affecting the rich countries to a smaller extent ("Climate Change...").