World’s Poorest Countries Commit to Emissions Cuts

In what could be a very important and potential far-reaching move, the poorest countries in the world have now said that they are prepared to commit themselves to binding cuts in their emissions of greenhouse gases. Until very recently, the group of the 49 Least Developed Countries (LDC) have insisted that the primary responsibility for tackling climate change through carbon cuts lies with larger and richer industrialised nations, which emitted most of the carbon dioxide currently in the atmosphere.

The LDC group’s move could now potentially quicken the pace of the frustratingly slow UN climate change negotiations, which have been trying for a number of years to agree upon an effective solution to cut emissions in order to avoid the development of global warming and further climate change.

The LDC group has always been a major negotiating bloc at the UN talks. Its member states account for 12 percent of the world’s people. Whether its willingness to accept the cuts will in fact hasten the birth of a new and more complete climate agreement will now depend largely on the good faith and commitment of the more powerful countries.

Unfortunately progress has been slowed by the fact that a number of developed countries have stated that they will only make cuts when the membership of the LDC do so. This is despite the fact that it is industrialisation and development that have largely caused the human contribution to climate change.

It is well known that it has been the developing world’s refusal to accept that it is also responsible for helping to solve a problem it did not cause that has allowed some of the richest countries, such as the US and Australia, to refuse to commit themselves to internationally-agreed cuts.