What, if anything, do rich nations owe to poorer nations for their green house gas emissions, and the resulting climate change? According to some commentators, on account of the high levels of carbon emissions by rich nations, at least historically, rich nations should pay poorer nations damages.
The logic is relatively easy to follow: rich nations have produced loads of carbon and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, on the road to becoming rich, with the result being that poorer nations have been impacted by the effects of climate change, only without the resources to manage the detrimental effects of a climate in disarray. Why should poor nations, who didn’t emit their ‘fair share’ of greenhouse gases, be made to suffer for rich nations who disproportionately did?
There is a problem, though, with this line of reasoning. When we zoom out, and look at the bigger picture, it is simply an incomplete account to highlight emissions from rich nations that had serious negative externalities for poor nations—one should consider that there is much rich nations have done to benefit poorer nations, even if only indirectly.
There are a number of innovations, developments, and products that were invented, pioneered, and developed by rich nations—especially those broadly in the West—that have greatly benefited poorer nations. The most obvious is antibiotics. But there are many more besides: improved farming techniques that make food cheaper, treatments for widespread diseases like malaria, the World Wide Web that makes accessing data and information significantly easier, and the list goes on and on.
Of course, the claim is not that rich nations developed such things purposefully to help poorer nations—just like rich nations didn’t emit carbon and other greenhouse gasses to harm poorer nations—but rather than when we are considering the harms that richer nations have, unintentionally, visited upon poorer nations, in order to make the case for financial restitution, we should consider too the many ways in which poorer nations have benefited from richer ones. And those ways are many.
Does this mean that richer nations are, morally and financially speaking, off the hook? That probably depends on the theory of justice that one accepts. Regardless, the fact that rich nations have significantly benefited nations should, at a minimum, weaken the case that rich nations owe poorer nations climate damages.
Am I wrong?