Howsoever important the global issues of common concern are, the national policy actions, due to domestic compulsions and varying perceptions of national interests by respective governments, are rarely guided by them, unless, of course, a common catastrophe or extinction threat does become imminent. The problem of climate change though happens to be one such issue of common global concern, yet there seems to be little prospect that a major breakthrough would be achieved either at the current get together of 100 and odd world leaders at the UN or at the forthcoming Copenhagen UN summit on climate change. For, instead of realizing individual role and responsibility for causing climate change through excessive energy consumption and burning fossil fuel, leading to greenhouse gas emission and warming of atmosphere, the member countries of the UN do seem to be generally indulged in mutual accusations. Thus, unless there is an agreement on a common policy framework to tackle the problem of climate change, and the member countries do show some genuine commitment to voluntarily reduce greenhouse gas emission in order to keep the atmospheric temperature to an agreed safe levels of 2 degrees Celsius of the pre-industrial stage, there is little chance of any progress on this front. In this respect, a clear acceptance of the judicious and pragmatic principle of 'historical responsibility and distributive burden sharing with equity' could become the starting point. Simultaneously, the western industrialized nations too should agree to help developing countries fund and transfer clean technology to facilitate their transition to green economic development, which might lead to a win-win situation for all.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/opinion/23wed1.html?ref=opinion
