1) Is it ethical or fair for richer countries to burn fossil fuels indiscriminately,

thereby creating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and indirectly imposing climate
change on poorer countries?

Unquestionably, abuse of the combustion of fossil fuels that indirectly inflict climate
change effects on least developed countries is quite unethical for rich and industrialized
countries. While there is no clear law that these countries have violated, but based on
credible facts verified by science and experts, the figures and catastrophic incidents that
have occurred in poor countries can merely stand as evidence supporting this claim. As
one of the ethical principles of climate change adopted by UNESCO, equity and justice
emphasizes that there should be judicial and administrative remedies accessible by
countries that are unjustly affected by climate change. These countries have been
vulnerable to heavy floods, hurricanes, rising sea levels, rising temperatures leading to
major fires, and even worse, thousands of human lives and animal habitats have been
taken away by these impacts. It should be noted that these countries have made little to
no contribution to the imbalance of greenhouse gas emissions, while well-developed
countries, which are the major contributors of GHGs in the atmosphere, have absorbed
most of the convenience and growth upon using the technologies and machineries. It is
therefore correct for these affected countries to ask for accountability or compensation
and for developed countries to comply and cooperate mitigating the damage they have
caused.

2) Is it ethical or fair to require poor or undeveloped third-world countries to meet

the same emissions standards as Western countries, which have emitted about 20
times as much GHG per capita for the past century?

Requiring underdeveloped countries to meet the same GHG emission standards of

western countries is just synonymous to the idiom adding fire to the flame. If this is
pursued, worst case scenarios should be expected because this will just add up to the
indecent amount of GHGs trapped in the atmosphere that will just disappear after
thousands of years. It is therefore quite unethical to enforce such a requirement, even
though the economic status of developing countries is likely to increase, but the quantity
of GHG emissions would also increase, which means sacrificing the environment and
social welfare in return for economic development. According to the Future of Life
Institute, between 1981 and 2011, the number of people living in severe poverty
decreased from 1.1 billion to 161 million in East Asia, an 85% decrease, while the
amount of carbon dioxide per capita increased from 2.1 to 5.9 tons per capita - 185%
increase. Such an increase in emissions signifies that climate change effects will worsen
and indirectly affect future generations. So instead of imposing such requirement, why
not comply to one of the ethical principles in climate change adopted by UNESCO which
is having solidarity among industrialized countries wherein they will support
underdeveloped countries through providing cheaper and green-technologies that will not
only help them boost their economy but also reduce the possibility of contributing to the
already excess emissions of GHGs. Well-off countries should subsidize renewable energy
to countries struggling with higher poverty rates since they have more capacity to do such
help and this will serve as their way of compensating affected countries due to climate
change. With this, economic and environmental sustainability can somehow be achieved,
little by little.

3) How will the industrialized nations respond to the millions of "climate" refugees
created in Africa when droughts reduce crops, or in Bangladesh and the Pacific
islands when sea levels rise and flood these low-living countries?

Since developing countries have more access to information about how to forecast the
impacts of climate change and more advanced technologies that are also less detrimental
to the environment, these tools can be shared with underdeveloped countries that have
already experienced the impacts of climate change. This is the least they can do as a way
of taking responsibility for their immense contribution to the atmospheric emissions of
GHGs. In order to minimize carbon emissions, adaptation to a more sustainable lifestyle
should be promoted by all nations. In order to predict potential consequences,
accessibility to reliable knowledge about the world's current situation should be duly
disseminated among poorer countries such as Africa and Bangladesh. Priority should be
provided to these countries because they are vulnerable to these effects and in order to
provide a better quality of life for them. Thus, it is ethical and equitable that the better-off
should sacrifice more to help the worse-off, and those with the greatest potential to assist
should do the most in introducing solutions to today's greatest challenge faced by this
world.