Klimaatverandering 98

'Rich Countries Owe 'Eco-Debt' to Poor Ones, Say Activists
by Brian Kenety

BRUSSELS - If wealthy nations only realized how much ''ecological debt'' they owe poor ones, they would drop their financial claims against the debtor countries of the developing world, say anti-debt and environmental campaigners.
Indeed, the campaigners argue, the concept of ecological debt provides a compelling new argument to cancel the financial debts of these countries: not only has the debt been paid in financial terms, as activists long have argued, but it also is more than offset in ecological terms.
If the North realized the scale and severity of its ecological debt to the South, ''no one would again have the audacity to demand that countries like Mozambique or Niger send a penny more debt service,'' says Andrew Simms, a veteran of the Jubilee 2000 debt relief campaign who works for the London-based New Economics Foundation.
Ecological debt is the notion that the industrialized countries should compensate the Third World for centuries of exploiting its natural resources and should pay damages for the unsustainable consumption patterns and polluting carbon emissions that have led to global warming.
Simms led a workshop on ecological debt in nearby Antwerp this week, part of a Nov 19-21 conference on sustainable development hosted by Vlaams Overleg Duurzame Ontwikkeling (VODO), a Flemish network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
He says he hopes to put the ecological debt concept, introduced by Latin American NGOs at the Rio de Janerio 'Earth Summit' of 1992, on the official agenda of next year's World Summit on Sustainable Development, also known as Rio +10, in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Proponents say the ecological debt argument's potential benefits might be clear enough for, but should not be limited to, debt-ridden poor countries.
Joan Martínez Alier, an economics professor from Barcelona, Spain, says "to place the claim to an ecological debt on the international political order of the day" would in itself be the best contribution that the South could make towards pushing the economies of the North towards ecological sustainability.
"The question is not so much collecting the ecological debt, but to prevent it from increasing any further," says Alier, acknowledging that no accounting system yet exists for repayment.'

Lees verder: http://commondreams.org/headlines01/1122-01.htm