"The Environment Bank": A Feasible Mediator Between Human Ingratitude and Nature’s Reprisal

Abstract

Environmental degradation is of solemn concern nowadays all over the world. Government bodies, international organizations, corporate/noncorporate concerns, even all the erudite people of the countries are more or less anxious about the deteriorating environmental condition of the world. The authorities of the countries have struggled with the question of how best to respond to environmental degradation and potential global climate change. There has been much reasoning and researching as to find out the best possible ways to protect our environment. Countries on every side of the world meet frequently (in Rio de Janeiro in the summer of 1992, in Berlin in the spring of 1995, in Kyoto, Japan, in December of 1997, in The Hague, the Netherlands in November of 2000) to find out the most effective way to handle the world environment and to bind themselves with certain commitments. Many countries have imposed rigid policies, restrictions and regulations, many have appointed stronger and better monitoring and enforcement bodies within their own territories, and united bodies like the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), etc. have generated worldwide campaigns. But no one ultimate weapon has been found and the world environment is invariably deteriorating in an appalling way. One thing could be said with confidence of all the initiatives taken and their resulting implications in many countries, that not until people become concerned about their environment and not until people in polluting businesses find the easiest way out of their harmful activities would environmental rectifying be possible. One little suggestion can be made here, though it is not so negligible. As prevention is always better than protection, why not allow an environment bank to operate within the nation, regulated by the government, or throughout the whole world, regulated by the UN or the World Bank. Dual environmental threats and direct poverty/environment linkage The two most serious environmental threats are great poverty and great wealth (UNEP 1999). The countries with great wealth are contributing much more to the global climate change compared to the countries with less wealth. Diffusing from these industrialized countries, man-made emissions of greenhouse gases have recently broken the all-time record, with the highest concentrations in the atmosphere in more than 400,000 years. In 1998, the world burned more fossil fuels than ever, resulting in a global increase of about 10 percent in carbon dioxide emissions compared to 1990. The year 1997 was the hottest ever until 1998, which was even hotter and was accompanied by catastrophic weather events all over the world. More than 40,000 people were killed, about forty-five countries were stricken by droughts while at least fifty-four others were soaked by floods, a record amount of US$ 100 billion worth of damage was caused-the cause behind all these losses and many more was the weather-related catastrophes in 1998. But the developed world is not yet fully committed, and serious, to combat the climate change. Most of the industrialized countries have failed to reduce their respective greenhouse gas emissions to the 1990 level by the year 2000, as per commitment under the Convention on Climate Change. In some countries, it is continuing to rise. Here comes the need for a strong governing body that can reign, regulate, and require the nations to abide by certain policies and conditions. Though the countries with great poverty are not industrialized or capable enough to have an impressive impact on the global climate, the environmental condition of the countries is still of serious concern. They are facing much more troubles with their environment due to their sole dependency on their microenvironment. Among the 40,000 people killed during 1998 in weather-related events, most of them were from the developing countries. …