mining or sulphur dioxide pollution in copper mining. There is a pressing need to calculate the use of
environmental space throughout the world for depositing gas residues which have been accumulating
for two centuries and have created a situation which currently affects all the countries of the world.
The warming caused by huge consumption on the part of some rich countries has repercussions on the
poorest areas of the world, especially Africa, where a rise in temperature, together with drought, has
proved devastating for farming. There is also the damage caused by the export of solidwaste and toxic
liquids to developing countries, and by the pollution produced by companies which operate in less
developed countries in ways they could never do at home, in the countries in which they raise their
capital: “We note that often the businesses which operate this way are multinationals. They do here
what theywould never do in developed countries or the so-called first world. Generally, after ceasing
their activity and withdrawing, they leave behind great human and environmental liabilities such as
unemployment, abandoned towns, the depletion of natural reserves, deforestation, the impoverishment
of agriculture and local stock breeding, open pits, riven hills, polluted rivers and a handful of social
workswhich are no longer sustainable”.
30
52.
The foreign debt of poor countries has become a way of controlling them, yet this is not the
case where ecological debt is concerned. In different ways, developing countries, where the most
important reserves of the biosphere are found, continue to fuel the development of richer countries at
the cost of their own present and future. The land of the southern poor is rich and mostly unpolluted,
yet access to ownership of goods and resources for meeting vital needs is inhibited by a system of
commercial relations and ownership which is structurally perverse. The developed countries ought to
help pay this debt by significantly limiting their consumption of non-renewable energy and by assisting
poorer countries to support policies and programmes of sustainable development. The poorest areas
and countries are less capable of adoptingnewmodels for reducing environmental impact because they
lack the wherewithal to develop the necessary processes and to cover their costs. Wemust continue to
be aware that, regarding climate change, there are
differentiated responsibilities
. As the United States
bishops have said, greater attention must be given to “the needs of the poor, the weak and the
vulnerable, in a debate often dominated by more powerful interests”.
31
We need to strengthen the
30
BISHOPSOFTHEPATAGONIA-COMAHUEREGION (ARGENTINA),
ChristmasMessage
(December 2009), 2.
31
UNITED STATESCONFERENCEOFCATHOLICBISHOPS,
GlobalClimateChange:APlea forDialogue, Prudence
and theCommonGood
(15 June2001).
