全球环境变化与全球不平等南北方的不同立场

Global Environmental Change and Global Inequality: North/South Perspectives

全球环境变化给发展中国家和南北关系带来深刻影响。理解环境问题的全球不平等需要以发展中国家80年代 开始的经济结构调整和沉重债务为背景。南方的环境政策优先在很大程度上与其生活的可持续性相连,而不是通常与全球环境变化的长期性风险相关。然而,全球环境变化又与发展中国家贫困人口的日常生活紧密相关。从南方的立场看,当“问题”对他们不十分迫切时,就很难同意采取措施。仅此原因,北方对全球环境变化的关切要得到成功回应,真正的全球契约就需要解决基本“发展”问题,主要是贫困。

Global environmental change (GEC) carries serious implication for developing countries and for North/South relations. The article argues that global inequalities need to be understood against the background ofstructural adjustment and indebtedness that characterized the 1980s. Environmental policy priorities are largelyconcerned with livelihood sustainability in the South, rather than the longer-term risks usually associated withGEC. However, the ‘global’ agenda of climate change, biodiversity loss and deforestation is intimately linkedto the everyday livelihood concerns of poor people in developing countries. Looked at from the perspectives ofthe South there are serious difficulties in agreeing to take measures to reduce atmospheric emissions when the‘problem’ was not one of their making. The authors conclude that, for this reasons alone, a real global contractwill need to address underlying‘developing’issues, principally poverty, before the global concerns of the Northcan be successfully met.