The first priority for developing countries when it comes to climate change mitigation should be reducing poverty, but the market-based approach of carbon trading is doing little to alleviate imbalances in the system, writes Khadija Sharife. Khadija works as a visiting scholar at the Center for Civil Society (CCS), based in South Africa. Since their Durban declaration on Climate Justice, signed by many organisations, CCS plays a central role in current debates on Climate Justice and “carbon trading”. In this article she uses a wide range of sources and examples that, altogether, make a very strong case against carbon trading and in favor of an ecological debt approach to look at the issue of Climate Justice. “By 2009, more than 17 years after the non-binding UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted at the Rio Earth Summit, developed countries had channeled just $3bn in climate funding to developing countries. In contrast, developed governments – chiefly the US – invest over $700bn each year in global fossil-fuel subsidies”.
