ABSTRACT
Climate change can only be tackled if the principles of sustainability; equity; decentralized, democratic and transparent governance; environmental restoration; and taking responsibility for causing climate change are accepted by all countries. The principle of “taking responsibility for causing climate change” is particularly important for South Asia, as its contribution to climate change is small, yet it will be impacted disproportionately. South Asia has nearly a quarter of the world’s current population, but its historic CO2 emissions are only 3.64% of the world’s historic emissions and its current emissions are only 7.24% of the world’s emissions. Yet it is extremely vulnerable to various climate change impacts because of its geography and the low resilience of its population to withstand climate change impacts. The nations of South Asia are caught in a catch-22 situation. If they burn more fossil fuels to “develop,” they will contribute to temperature rise crossing the 1.5-2°C red line, thus risking a runaway temperature rise if feed-forward mechanisms kick in. If they control their emissions to avoid crossing this temperature rise red line, they will remain permanently backward in comparison to northern countries. The author looks at India’s vulnerability, despite its having historically low emissions per capita, from a South Asia perspective.
