The United States has always been the climate change renegade. For the past 25-odd years, since negotiations for a global agreement to combat the threat of this potential catastrophe began, the US has been the naysayer, pushing against a deal, weakening the draft and always hiding its inaction behind the legitimate growth of emissions in countries like China and India.
Days after President Barack Obama lashed out at British Petroleum (BP) saying he would not let them ‘nickel and dime’ his people in the oil spill case, a sessions court in Bhopal did precisely that with the victims of the world’s worst industrial disaster. After 25 long years the court of the chief judicial magistrate pronounced its verdict on the criminal case against Union Carbide and its Indian subsidiary on the matter of negligence and liability.
The unit was closed down in December 1984 as a result of the in famous accident of leakage of methyl iso-cyanate gas (MIC).
The Union Carbide India Ltd. (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, which used to manufacture (among other products) the pesticide Sevin (carbaryl) gained world-wide recognition as a result of the tragic chemical disaster on the night of 2-3rd December 1984.