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The Effects Of Climate Change On The United States

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The Discordant Applications of the Common But Differentiated Responsibilities Doctrine as a Hindrance to Climate Change Policy

Climate change looms large over our rapidly growing and continually changing world. No longer are the adverse effects of this menacing global issue a mere ominous projections, they are starting to become a very concrete reality. Countries are today experiencing rising sea levels, which compromises coastal infrastructure, prolonged drought, squeezing food supply and agricultural productivity, as well as extreme storms. Rising temperatures have already led to vast reductions in the size of the Arctic. There is now no doubt amongst scientists that anthropogenic activity has been the primary catalyst to the …show more content…

Subsequent conferences of parties (COP) meetings have proved to bear little fruit, apart from the Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997, which remains the contractual international climate change regime. However, even Kyoto was not ubiquitous, as it remains conspicuously unsigned by the US. Kyoto set binding target levels for reduction of emissions for developed countries and instituted a scheme that would lead to an eventual wider policy. Central to the Kyoto Protocol is the notion, which first emerged out of the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR), which acknowledges the inherent differences between developed and developing countries in their historical responsibilities as well as their respective abilities to combat climate change but calls for a united global effort. The idea is that developed countries proportionally must assume more of the emissions reduction burden as they are responsible for the historical contributions of CO2 to climate change during their industrialization processes, as well as provide “financial assistance and technological transfers” to developing countries. This tenant of CBDR has remained central to each additional international climate negotiation, but has proved to be an unsuccessful governing framework

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