Science is increasingly pointing a finger at human
actions as being responsible for the perils of climate change. This is
an ineluctable consequence of improving the computer models of climate
change. Of course, there are still large uncertainties. But it is clear
the human hand is indispensable in understanding what has happened.
The
more certain is the attribution for blame, the more justified many
developing countries will feel in protesting about the impact of rising
sea levels on small island states such as the Maldives and Fiji or
low-lying delta cultures such as Vietnam and Bangladesh. Fair-minded
democracies will find the call for compensation hard to resist at home.
The
science also opens up the possibility that the victims of climate
change could begin to take international legal action against the
countries responsible, particularly the early industrialisers, such as
Britain, Belgium and Germany, whose carbon continues to warm the planet a
century after it was emitted. Legal action is not a substitute for
politics, but it could highlight the evidence in an uncomfortable way.
The
UN framework may not be ideal, precisely because it is dominated by the
historic five powers, who have their own interests. But the
International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea may be a forum that would
hear the matter.
It is not a defence that we did not
know what we were doing, nor does a case have to target everyone who
might have historic responsibility: countries are jointly and severally
liable.
The historical emitters can argue that the
global political processes underway since 1992 are proof that the need
for action has been responded to and preclude the need for lawsuits. But
that implies that such processes must hold out a real possibility of
delivering change. —
© Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2013
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