India justifies heavy future emissions by the West’s historic pollution

Evidence

Developing countries, in turn, rejected caps on their countries’ greenhouse gas emissions on the grounds that global warming is a problem that the rich, industrialized countries created, so they should be the ones to cut their emissions. They asked why countries striving to modernize should stifle their economic and industrial growth for a problem that was not of their making. From their perspective, they argued, they have the same right to modernize their societies and raise their people’s standard of living as did the rich, industrialized countries. They, too, want to live prosperously. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2661 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Millions of people in India have no access to electricity. The country has embarked on a national development program requiring huge increases in energy production. The nation’s environment minister, Prakash Javadekar, explained that India’s top priority is to eradicate poverty and improve its economy (Davenport, 2014b). He estimates that this massive national development, which depends heavily on coal-fired energy, will double carbon emissions, moving them beyond those of the United States and China. The country will make efforts to reduce the rate of increase but, in his view, it will take decades before a decline in emissions can be achieved. He argues that developed countries spent a century polluting the atmosphere, so they now bear the responsibility of making large cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. “The moral principle of historic responsibility cannot be washed away,” he said (Davenport, 2014b). Some Indian megacities are among the most highly polluted in the world. A massive coal-fueled economy foretells a severely polluted future in which people’s standard of living is raised, but at the cost of a less livable environment and a heavy toll on public health. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2935 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Historic emitters must bear climate burdens regardless of current emissions — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 974; Developing countries use historical causation to justify their emissions — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2661; Developing nations justify rising emissions by invoking developed countries’ historic responsibility. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2935

Broader Connections

• Developing countries use historical causation to justify their emissions #exemplifies (0.97) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2661
• Developing nations justify rising emissions by invoking developed countries’ historic responsibility. #exemplifies (0.97) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2935