An Individual Carbon [Swindle] Cap for Every Man, Woman and Child? - thedailygreen.com

A new framework for reducing carbon emissions takes a crack at the knottiest dilemma confronting a global climate solution: how to divvy cuts between rich and poor nations.

The study, published Monday, attempts to sidestep the rancor, finding that virtually every country has a class of individuals -- the so-called "high emitters" -- enjoying a rich, carbon-intensive lifestyle. If those individuals, no matter their locale, are forced to take responsibility for their emissions, a great swath of countries become participants in the climate effort, the study claims.

"Rich people in poor countries shouldn't be able to hide behind the poor people in those countries," said Robert Socolow, co-director of Princeton's Carbon Mitigation Initiative and a co-author of the study, published in the journal Proceeds of the National Academy of Sciences.
...
Of course, none of this really works unless the developed world takes the lead. The original 1992 United Nations climate convention, ratified by more than 160 countries, including the United States, says that the developed world needs to act first.

They haven't done that yet, and experts agree time is quickly running out. This proposal is a way to bring the world together soon, they say.

"The north has got some sort of come-to-Jesus moment in its future. We just don't know how it's going to play out," said Tom Athanasiou, founder of EcoEquity, a think tank focused on global climate justice. "It's a terrible situation. It just is. We're way late."