Question

"States have not only common, but differentiated responsibilities also." Support the statement with two suitable arguments.

Hint:

Give two arguments: all states share one environment, so the duty is common; developed states caused more harm and have more resources, so their duty is greater.

Answer 1

Step 1: Understand the principle:
The Rio Earth Summit (1992) accepted that states have common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR). Both parts of the idea need support.

Step 2: Argument 1: Common responsibility:
The earth is one ecosystem. Problems such as global warming, ozone depletion and loss of biodiversity do not stop at borders.
So every state, rich or poor, has a duty to protect the environment and share in the solutions.

Step 3: Argument 2: Differentiated responsibility:
Developed states have caused most of the pollution through industrial growth, and they have more money and technology.
Developing states need to grow and have less capacity to deal with harm. So the Rio Declaration asks richer states to take the bigger share, and the Kyoto Protocol set no binding targets for India and China.

Final Answer:
All states share the duty to protect the environment, but richer states carry a larger share because of their greater past damage and greater capacity.