Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
The developing world was not impressed. Without a healthy package
of economic aid, the transition away from fossil fuels would be that much
more painful. What was more, First World economies had relied on the
profligate use of petroleum for their own industrialization, so this looked
a lot like the industrialized world using environmental concerns to pull
the ladder of development up behind them.
The end of the Cold War complicated this situation. Between the U.N.
General Assembly resolution to create a convention on climate change in
1989 and that convention's introduction in 1992, several former Soviet and
Soviet bloc states had begun to make the transition from centralized social-
ist planning to a market economy. These were “industrialized” nations,
but the legacy of Soviet rule left them with deep economic instability
and some of the most dire and pressing environmental problems on the
planet.
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Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Poland, and the new Russian Federa-
tion could hardly be categorized as underdeveloped. But neither could they
be expected to subsidize emissions reductions in the developing world,
either through the GEF or through forms of direct foreign aid, especially
in the shadow of such daunting environmental challenges at home.
Ultimately, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee— the body
that oversaw the drafting of the UNFCCC— hammered out a tenuous
compromise. The UNFCCC separated signatories into specific groups “on
the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated
responsibilities and respective capabilities.”
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“Annex I” countries, which
included members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) and “economies in transition” from communism to
capitalism, bore a responsibility to reduce their own emissions. Of these, a
subset of “Annex II” countries— mostly members of the OECD, or “devel-
oped” nations— also bore a responsibility to help fund emissions reduc-
tions and sustainable development in the developing world. Developing
countries' responsibilities for emissions reductions, meanwhile, depended
entirely on the level of financial and technical assistance they received from
these Annex II nations.
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It was a shaky and deeply problematic solution.
The second locus of dissent in negotiations over the UNFCCC involved
the specific emissions targets and timetables for reducing global CO
2
and
other greenhouse gases. Just as Japan and some members of the European
Community called for financial commitments for emissions reductions
and sustainable development abroad, so too did these nations demand
