Should developing nations have the right not to subscribe to global treaties on carbon emission reduction and other

initiatives that they feel inhibit their right to develop?

The Kuala Lumpur Declaration outlined the position of the fifty-five developing nations in relation to their responsibility in preventing climate change; in summary, these developing nations' stand is that while climate change is an important issue, it does not automatically supersede the imperative to develop. Dr. Mahathir's stand had been widely criticized as being too confrontational (Mater 1998, p.3) and furthermore the refusal of developing nations to subscribe to global treaties on carbon emission reduction that might inhibit their growth had created many debates regarding their right to do so. In particular, Bello criticized the growth at any cost stand as being purported only by the elites and does not represent the true general will of the population in developing nations and thus developing nations should subscribe to carbon emission reduction, albeit to a lesser degree than developed nations. However, while Bello did raised several interesting points, his arguments have several gaping holes that does not adequately cover Dr. Mahathir's concerns and arguments. Thus I would agree to a certain extent with Mahathir that developing nations should have the right not to subscribe to global treaties on carbon emission reduction and other initiatives that they feel might inhibit their right to develop.

The pertinent issue in the debate surrounding developing nations' right to develop is that of equality. While proponents of Dr. Mahathir supports the idea that responsibilities of climate change should equal the proportion of damage done in both past and present, opponents responded that the environment is a common resource and thus even though developing nations were not the major contributor, in the past and the present, to the problem, their potential carbon emission as a result of development is still a cause for concern and thus developing nations should subscribe to limitations on carbon emission. While the opponents of Dr. Mahathir is right to assert that the environment, being a common resource, means that everyone has equal responsibilities in guarding its well-being, their arguments that developing should submit to limitations on emission because of potential future emission as developing nations develop, is based on a false assumption of equality. Responsibilities

should not be imposed unilaterally based on the possession of a common resource, but rather it should be correlated with the utilization of the said resource. As Dr. Mahathir pointed out the rich twenty-five percent of the world population whom reside in developed nations does eighty-five percent of the world's consumption (Mathathir 1992/1993, p.2) and thus corresponding is responsible for the majority of carbon emission. Furthermore if we add in the time factor, the many decades of consumption in developed nations that contributed to the global warming problem, we can see that it is entirely unfair to ask developing nations to subscribe to limits on their growth even though they had been consistently under-utilizing the common resource.

While there are many proponents of Dr. Mahathir stand, there are many critics too. In particular Bello pointed out that there are many environmental movements within developing nations that are dissatisfied by the high polluting nature of economic growth. However, I posit that Bello's arguments are mostly out of context in relation to the carbon emission problem. While Bello might certainly be right in asserting that industrialization resulting in massive pollution caused the emergence of environmental movements which signal the dissatisfaction of the population, he misses the context of carbon emission. Pollution such as the contamination of farmlands in Taiwan by heavy metals (Bello, 2007) resulted in a reduction of income both directly, such as lowered income by Taiwan farmers because of low-quality harvest, as well as indirectly, through externalities such as increased medical costs. That is to say the actions of environmental movements raised by Bello can be understood as the choice between pollution with high direct income and reduce pollution with high indirect income. Thus it is not surprising to see environmental movements seeking to reduce these kinds of pollution in order to achieve an overall increase in income through reduction in negative externalities. However, because of the nature of carbon emission, there does not exist such a simple choice between more pollution/more direct income and less pollution/more indirect income. Baring technological miracles, the only way to reduce carbon emissions is to directly reduce income/consumption. Thus it would be interesting to see if Bello's

environmental movements would actually make the choice to entirely reduce their own income, and if they do not, then Bello's arguments that many environmental movements would oppose the Mahathirian stand falls apart.

In conclusion Dr. Mahathir made several strong points in asserting developing nations' right to not subscribe to growth-limiting policies. And while his critics are right to point out the equal responsibilities in safe-guarding our most precious common resources, they miss the point that responsibilities should equal benefits from utilization of said resource. And if one does not actually benefit much from the resource, then one has to question if it is fair for him to shoulder the responsibilities too.

Bibliography Mater, Marie A. 1998 Global Environmental Risks versus Economic Development: Malaysian Discourse at the UNCED. Paper no. 27 delivered at the AMIC 7th Annual Conference : Asia's Information Marketplace, Race for Technology, Content and Competence, Bangkok, May 21-23, 1998. <http://dr.ntu.edu.sg/handle/10220/1294> accessed on 24th August 2011 Second Ministerial Conference of Developing Countries on Environment and Development [29 April 1992] The Kuala Lumpur Declaration. In United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, 1992) 1993 The Earth Summit: The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). Introduction and Commentary by Stanley P. Johnson. London/Dordrecht/Boston: Graham and Trotman/ Martinus Nijhoff. Pp. 34-39. <https://webct.uwa.edu.au/webct/urw/lc103130001.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct> accessed on 23th August 2011. Walden, Bello 2007 The Environmental Movement in the Global South: The Pivotal Agent in the Fight against Global Warming? Presentation at the International Forum on Globalization Teach-In: Confronting the Global Triple Crisis: Climate Change, Peak Oil, Global Resource Depletion, Washington, D.C., September 14 16, 2007. <http://www.tni.org/detail_page.phtml?act_id=17458> accessed on 24th August 2011.