And for those emerging countries, I can see that they have a point too. All of the current major world economies got to where they are today by utterly destroying the climate and now we are trying to pull up the ladder to less industrailized nations and saying "tough luck". I can see why those countries continue to act the way they do (although to be clear, I don't agree with it either).
We strictly prohibit other countries from having clean nuclear energy, but offer them no alternatives than burning coal / gas either.
Although I'm glad to see that the new leader of Brazil has vowed to stop the deforestation of the Amazon. It's a step in the right direction.
This was my view as well... and kind of still is............ but a friend of mine countered me saying something similar to the above with the following..... i have not fact checked the numbers but this sounds plausible too.
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While there may be some truth that western countries have added to climate change.... it is also true that, other experts have suggested that the reason Pakistan experiences such terrible flooding is because they have cut down all their trees. Pakistan has the highest rate of deforestation in the world. When their nation was created in 1947, 33% of the total land mass was covered by forests; now that area is only 5%. Because of the lack of trees, the rain runs straight off the mountains into the silted up reservoirs which then overflow.
In addition, Pakistan has always had major floods, many just as catastrophic as the recent one. The 1950 flood, for example, killed twice as many people as the 2022 flood within a much lower population. Not every natural disaster can be blamed on the United Kingdom, gratifying and lucrative though that accusation may be.
Pakistan is already one of the UK's biggest recipients of aid. In 2019/20 they received around £302 million from our heavily indebted country, spanning areas including human development, climate and the environment. Most British people would consider that quite a generous gift to a nation which has its own nuclear weapons and a space programme. Pakistan also has more than a thousand coal mines. I do wonder whether they have any concerns about their impact or was it just British coal mines which caused a problem?
Plus, the present population of Pakistan is 225 million (up from 65 million in 1970) which will inevitably add to pressure on the environment.
The proposition, is that Pakistan should now receive "loss and damage" compensation from UK for the "cost" of historic emissions. How is that bill to be calculated exactly?
On the list of "developing countries" with their hand out is China. The country which has emitted more carbon dioxide over the past eight years than the UK has since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
