Virginia University: Global Warming
Global Warming Strategy Should Consider Countries Cultures Says Bell - 03/28/07
Debates over how to best address global climate change go on as if all of the world's countries had the same sorts of economic, legal, and cultural frameworks, suggested Ruth Greenspan Bell at a Virginia Environmental Law Journal symposium.
In fact, Bell said, cultural variability needs to be taken into account before any kind of effective international strategy for addressing global climate change can be devised.
Bell, the director of Resources for the Future's program for International Institutional Environmental Assistance, explained in her keynote address that there now seems to be some momentum gathering to seriously address global warming and climate change within the United States.
According to Bell, taking significant steps to address global climate change will allow the United States to help motivate other countries, such as China, India, and Brazil, to follow suit.
"This opens the door for some rethinking of how to engage the international community in the overall effort," she said. "Once the United States actually does something, we're. in a position to go out there and start talking to the rest of the world."
Nothing approximating the rigor of the current American system of buying and selling emissions with a great degree of transparency can happen globally, Bell said. Many of the developing countries are not as swayed by market forces and laws as the United States is, so recommendations by American lawyers and economists from the American perspective are not going to have the same effect, she said.
