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I. SMALL ISLAND DEVELOPING STATES IN INTERNATIONAL LAW Small island developing states (SIDS) are increasingly recognized as deserving of special consideration both in international law generally and in international environmental law in particular. This special recognition has grown since the 1992 Earth Summit and was clearly reflected in the 1994 Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States (to be revisited in 2004) and within the 2002 Plan of Implementation from the World Summit on Sustainable Development. (1) These documents all reflect the same consideration: that most SIDS face an uphill battle in meeting the challenges of sustainable development irrespective of climate change. Accordingly, they already need specific assistance to meet the economic, social, and environmental problems which already affect them. Accordingly, as the Political Declaration of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development concluded, the countries of the world will, inter alia, "continue to pay special attention to the developmental needs of Small Island Developing States." (2) However, unfortunately for SIDS, the other dilemmas they face in achieving sustainable development are dwarfed by one environmental problem: climate change. II. CLIMATE CHANGE "Climate change" refers to "a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods." (3) This anthropogenic climate change is caused by "greenhouse gases." The primary greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous dioxide. These gases are increasing in concentration in the atmosphere. The evidence for this may be seen from the scientific data of the oscillations of historical greenhouse gas concentrations through to more specific contemporary measurements. These measurements show concentrations of greenhouse gases not found in the atmosphere for thousands of years. III. THE SOURCES OF THE POLLUTANTS Modern industrial society is the primary culprit in terms of the creation of greenhouse gases. Since the Industrial Revolution, industry, agriculture, and transport have all contributed vast amounts of emissions. Historically, the lion's share of these pollutants came from developed countries. This share may be seen in terms of sovereign output (i.e., the countries' overall emissions) and per-capita output (i.e., an average individual's emissions from one country compared to another). Both ways of measuring output involve a different emphasis as well as a different political point of view. (4) For example, in the mid-1990s, the global average for per-capita carbon dioxide emissions, in kilograms, was 4157. Despite the average, the differences in the global total ranged from 19,675 kgs for the United States through to 949 kgs for China, 652 kgs for India, all the way down to 2 kgs for Somalia. (5) Although there are some developing countries which are taking their per-capita outputs to comparable levels of those of developed countries, such as Turkey, Korea, and Mexico, (6) the broad disparity in emissions on a per-capita basis between the developed and developing world is expected to continue into the foreseeable future. Conversely, when viewed from a sovereign basis, the United States has 36.1% of the total emissions of developed countries, the Russian Federation has 17.4%, Japan has 8.5%, Germany has 7.4% and the UK has 4.3%. (7) However, unlike the remaining differences between developed and developing countries with regard to greenhouse gas emissions on a per-capita basis, a clear change is occurring with regard to sovereign emissions. The key change is that the aggregate emissions from developing countries are growing at a much higher rate than developed countries. (8) If such increases continue, it is expected that the developing world will be producing more carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels by 2005 than all the industrialized countries were producing in 1988. …

Small Island States in the Face of Climatic Change: The End of the Line in International Environmental Responsibility - eScholarship