Bifalgorithm post

One of the biggest tragedies about the Nepal floods is that this small Himalayan country did almost nothing to deserve this. Nepal contributes just about 0.1% to the world's greenhouse gas emissions. Historically, it has just contributed 0.01% to the world's carbon dioxide emissions and yet it is witnessing one of the worst impacts of these emissions, climate change. As the country has lost more than 1,000 of its people in one of its deadliest floods caused by a glacial collapse attributed to climate change, Nepal is demanding compensation for the unfairness's biggest greenhouse gas emitters currently, US, China and India. But who really should be paying? Watch this video till the world's annual greenhouse gas emissions. The US contributes nearly one tenth while India contributes nearly eight percent according to the European Commission. While these countries are also facing the brunt of climate change with disasters like floods and wildfires, Nepal says that while these countries benefited from development fueled by these emissions, Nepal did not reap those benefits, but it's unfairly facing the consequences because of its fragile Himalayan ecosystem. While countries like India are now sending humanitarian aid to Nepal, the country's foreign minister Shishir Khanal has said that we don't just need charity from these countries, we need justice, compensation and moral liability. Now what Nepal is demanding is not new. Climate justice and compensation from developed countries to vulnerable countries has been a debate at platforms like the UN for decades now. At COP 27 in 2022, a fund for responding to loss and damage was created to assist developing countries suffering climate-related loss. But there's a problem. This fund doesn't exactly make the world's biggest emitters pay. It simply urges developed countries to pay on a voluntary basis. This is what makes Nepal's demand different from this, as Nepal is naming countries directly and demanding compensation from them instead of only from the UN fund. Nepal has also formally approached this fund for finances, but this fund's total last reported balance is about $300 million, while Nepal has witnessed damages worth nearly $5 billion, which is equal to almost one-tenth of the country's GDP. Now an important question for us, should India be liable to pay? Even though we have been named by Nepal, we have pretty much been fighting for climate equity ourselves. We argue that we are also a victim of this unfairness. India's argument is that while currently we're one of the biggest emitters in the world, if total historical emissions still date are considered, India is well behind European countries, Japan and Russia as well. We're at the seventh spot instead of the current third. Secondly, our per capita emissions are one third of the global average and significantly lesser than that of countries like the US and Russia. So yes, countries should pay, but it's these historically high emitters that India says should be responsible for this compensation and not us. They should be paying compensation to countries like Nepal, countries that are facing the brunt of a crisis that they did not create. So tell us what you think about this debate in the comments and follow BTV for more such crisp, honest news every day.

One of the biggest tragedies about the Nepal floods is that this small Himalayan country did almost nothing to deserve this. Nepal contributes just about 0.1%…