Wolfgang Roth on climate protection

Wolfgang Roth writes in the Süddeutsche Zeitung on the different standards for poor and rich countries concerning environmental protection: "As long as the rich states cannot show that it is possible to introduce a more environmentally friendly model for economic growth and prosperity they have no right to make demands on the rest of the world. In the end no moral argument can justify some countries having a greater right to pollute the atmosphere than others. On a per capita basis, Germany produces at least three times as much harmful carbon emissions as China. And America produces at least five times as much. A trading system that would allow everyone on earth the same contingent is still a Utopia. Such a scheme would involve slowing both climate change and population growth, and that is not possible without combating poverty, the education gap and discrimination against women. If global warming is to be limited to two degrees, China, India, Europe and the US must agree on the same level of emissions. This would mean a sharp reduction of greenhouse gases for the classical industrial states and a limited increase for the others."

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