Elena Lioubimtseva, PhD – Responsibility

Video Transcript:

Well, when you answer this question, who is responsible for climate change, of course everyone is responsible.  The answer seems to be simple.  But I think we also need to think about individual responsibilities and collective responsibilities.  And by collective responsibilities, I mean responsibility of each of us as a part of our community, or as a part of our nation.  When I think of my individual responsibility of climate change, I also see myself as an individual living in the United States.  And as an individual living in the United States, I am responsible for about 25% of carbon emissions in the world, versus someone who is living in India and is probably individually is responsible for only a very tiny fraction of the percent of carbon emissions.  But on the other hand, India as a whole is becoming responsible for quite a sizeable and growing amount of emissions.  Still much lower than the United States.  Still much lower than any developing country.  But because the population is more than 1 billion, the collective responsibility is becoming much larger than the individual responsibility.

So, how we can balance individual responsibility towards responsibility as a part of a group of people.  And I think the same differentiation can also happen if we look at ourselves as a part of a certain social group, as a part of a community, as a part of class.  Different groups of people are responsible for different amounts of emissions.  Perhaps the simplest way to look at it in terms of our carbon footprint, if I try to calculate my carbon footprint today, just because of the way how I live, even if I don’t want necessarily to live the way, I live as if I have about 3 planets, while someone living in Subsahar in Africa, is leaving only the very tiny fraction of the planet.  So the question of environmental responsibilities is really very much linked to the question of equity.