Contents

1. Introduction: 2

2. The CBDR principle: 3

2.1 The common responsibilities: 6

2.2 The differentiated responsibilities: 6

2.3 Distinguishing between developed and developing countries: 7

3. Criticism of the CBDR principle today: 9

4. Conclusion: 11

5. Bibliography: 13

Word count (excluding footnotes, headings and bibliography): 3032 words 1. Introduction:

Climate change is the most critical international humanitarian crisis today; it is adversely affecting our health, economy, national security and communities in a myriad of ways. Scientists have constantly been warning us that if we do not aggressively restrain climate change and control its effects now, the results will indisputably be devastating. They have also predicted that critical climate change effects such as long-term droughts and significant sea-level rise are inevitable although global efforts to decrease greenhouse gas emissions are being implemented. Hazardous impacts such melting icecaps in the Polar regions, heavy rainfall and disastrous storms, and growing variability of temperature in almost all regions of the world are being felt. In 1992, many countries collectively came up with an international treaty, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to consider what should be done to regulate average global temperature increases and the subsequent climate change process, and to tackle whatever impacts were, by then, unavoidable. By 1995, countries recognised that emission reductions provisions in the Convention were insufficient. Two years later Kyoto Protocol was adopted to strengthen the global response to climate change. This protocol legally binds developed countries to emission reduction targets. One paramount principle found in the UNFCCC and in the Kyoto Protocol is the “common but differentiated responsibilities”