Jubilee Debt Campaign UK : Latest news : Climate debt - Bolivia calls for justice

Jubilee Debt Campaign UK : Latest news : Climate debt - Bolivia calls for justice: "Climate debt - Bolivia calls for justice
4 June 2009

Rich countries owe an enormous ‘climate debt’ to the global South, which must be the starting point for any new international climate deal, Bolivia has said.

Climate Justice Now seminar

A Climate Justice Now seminar at UN climate negotiations in Poland in 2008. Photo: Climate Justice Blog

Bolivia's statement came during talks in Bonn to discuss a new global treaty, due to be agreed in Copenhagen in December. The vast majority of global greenhouse gas emissions over the last 200 years have been produced by industrialised countries, it argues, who have an 'emissions debt' to the countries of the global South. These countries are also feeling the brunt of the impacts of climate change, and so they are owed an 'adaptation debt' by the rich countries of the North. Yet rich countries are only offering ‘loans’ and ‘aid’ to developing countries in response to the climate threat.

Bolivia argues that developing countries are not seeking economic handouts to solve a problem they did not cause, but are instead seeking justice for the damage these emissions have done and will do to their people. A recognition of this climate debt, it says, must be at the hear"