Political Science · Ch 6 — Environment and Natural Resources
Common but Differentiated Responsibilities
Common but Differentiated Responsibilities
The core of the disagreement between the developed countries (the North) and the developing countries (the South) on environmental issues is not whether to protect the environment, but who should bear the greater burden of doing so. The North argues that environmental degradation is a current, global problem and that all nations must share equal responsibility for fixing it. The South counters that this position ignores history: the industrial development that caused most of the world's ecological damage was carried out by the North. If the North created the problem, the South argues, it must take the lead in solving it.
This argument is not just about blame. Developing countries are still in the process of industrialising. They argue that imposing the same strict environmental restrictions on them that apply to already-industrialised nations would cripple their growth and keep them poor. Their special needs — for development, poverty alleviation, and economic growth — must be factored into any international environmental law.
This logic was formally accepted at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The principle that emerged is called Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) . The Rio Declaration states that all states must cooperate to protect the Earth's ecosystem, but they have "common but differentiated responsibilities" because they have contributed differently to global environmental degradation. Crucially, the declaration explicitly acknowledges that developed countries bear a special responsibility, given the pressure their societies place on the environment and their command over technology and financial resources.
The principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) , formalised at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, holds that while all nations share a common duty to protect the environment, developed countries bear a greater historical responsibility for past degradation and have a greater capacity (technological and financial) to act now.
The CBDR principle was then embedded in the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UNFCCC states that parties must protect the climate system "on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities." The parties to the UNFCCC agreed on two key facts:
- The largest share of historical and current global greenhouse gas emissions has come from developed countries.
- Per capita emissions in developing countries are still relatively low. …
The figure shows a stark, tragic image from Africa in the 1970s. It is a photograph of what was once fertile cropland, now turned into a cracked, barren expanse of earth. The ground is split into deep, irregular fissures — the kind that form when topsoil completely dries out and shrinks. There are no crops, no green plants, no water. The landscape is flat and desolate under a pale sky. The caption explains that this was one of the biggest catastrophes in Africa during that decade: a drought that destroyed the best agricultural land across five countries.
The image is not a diagram or a map — it is a documentary photograph. Its purpose is to give the viewer a visceral sense of what environmental devastation looks like on the ground. The cracked earth is the central object; there are no people, buildings, or animals in the frame. The emptiness itself is the message. The caption adds that the term "environmental refugees" entered popular vocabulary after this event, because so many people had to abandon their homes and farms when agriculture became impossible. …