CSE asks:
1) What did the rich countries do to meet Kyoto commitments?
And
2) How do we all share growth and atmosphere equitably?
Our agenda for Poznan
Centre for Science and Environment (CSE)
We all know today that the threat of climate change is real and urgent. We also know that combating this threat will require deep and drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. The question in Poznan is, how we will recommit the industrialized world to serious reduction of its emissions. We need action, hard and fast, not just excuses and small change. Poznan must also determine if the world is serious about climate change. We know that the poor are also feeling the pain of a changing climate—with increased variations in rainfall, intensities of tropical cyclones and ways which makes them even more vulnerable and less able to cope with daily survival. We also know that the emerging economies (at whom fingers are pointed for their growth and emissions) have already agreed at Bali to take on national actions for mitigation. They know it is in their interest not to first pollute and then clean up. But they also know they need funds and technology to invest in a low-carbon economy. They can leapfrog. But it will cost. This is the hub of the matter.
Therefore, the question at Poznan is clear: will the rich world, responsible for the stock of emissions already in the common atmosphere, find the resources to pay the victims of its economic excesses? Will the same world find the resources to pay for the much-needed transition to low-carbon economies? As we say, the issues are clear. But the answers are lost in prevarication and pretence.
We know today that international negotiations on climate change, to put it politely, stink.
The mood is downright mean, belligerent and selfish. But it is not because of the unwillingness of the poor or the emerging rich that the negotiations on climate are deadlocked. But because the rich, industrialized world has still not learnt the first lesson of climate change—to share the atmospheric space so that growth can be shared equally.
Shared vision
We cannot share a vision for how the world will combat climate change, unless we are prepared to share the common atmospheric resources of the world. Equity is a pre-requisite for an effective climate agreement. The fact is that without cooperation, this global agreement will not work. It is for this reason that the world must accept the concept of equal per capita emission entitlements so that the rich reduce and the poor do not go beyond their climate quota.
The shared vision, then, is about accepting the fact that climate change is related to economic growth. And in spite of years of protracted negotiations and targets set under the Kyoto Protocol, no country has been able to delink its growth from the growth of emissions. No country has shown how to build a low-carbon economy, as yet.
The facts are clear. Between 1990 and 2006, carbon dioxide emissions of the industrialized rich countries (Annex I, without the Economies in Transition) have increased by 14.5 per cent. This is unacceptable. Our shared vision must reject then the intransigence of the rich to reduce their emissions. It must force these countries to take hard and binding interim targets for emission reduction.
Accepting a long-term target (2050) based on a shifting baseline year, is a self-goal that the world cannot afford. There is no bailout package here that will work.
Mitigation
Climate change is about sharing growth between nations and people. It is about creating ecological space. And clearly, this has not happened till date. Forget historical emissions. Between 1980 and 2005, the total emissions of just one country—the US—were almost double that of China and more than seven times that of India. In per capita terms, the injustice is even more unacceptable, indeed immoral. We have seen no real change. No change that we can believe in.
This is when the world must know that climate change is about cooperation. The fact is, climate change teaches us more than anything else that the world is one; if the rich world pumped in excessive quantities of carbon dioxide yesterday, the emerging rich world will do so today. But cooperation is not possible without equity and fairness. Climate justice is a pre-requisite for an effective climate agreement.
It is here that Poznan must agree to cut to the chase. And not waste more time in finding every way to circumvent the principles of our agreement—that the rich must reduce so that the poor can grow. It must not spend time now finding ways to differentiate between countries of the South—the advanced, the not so advanced and the least advanced etc. This will push our countries who are willing partners in this fight against climate change, against the wall. Slow down the pace of negotiations and delay action. This climate salami must stop.
The developed world wants countries to take on ‘sectoral’ emission cuts, which it also says should be continuously negotiated so that more sectors can be included and become the legally binding commitments of the South. A devious, dastardly and deceitful ploy. Not acceptable. And a waste of (precious) time.
This is when the developing world has already agreed to take on national actions to mitigate emissions. They are not running away from their global responsibilities. They know that they must find low-carbon growth strategies without compromising on their right to develop.
They also know that this can be done. Countries like India and China provide the world the opportunity to ‘avoid’ additional emissions. The reason is that we are still in the process of building our energy, transport or industrial infrastructure. We can make investments in leapfrog technologies so that we can ‘avoid’ pollution. In other words, we can build our cities on public transport; our energy security on local and distributed systems—from biofuels to renewable; our industries using the most energy, and so, pollution-efficient technologies.
We know it is not in our interest to first pollute and then clean up; or be inefficient and then worry about saving energy. But we also know that high-end technologies needed for energy efficiency and transition to low-carbon futures are costly. It is not as if China and India are bent on first investing in dirty and fuel-inefficient technologies. We invest in these, as the now rich world has done: first add to emissions; make money; then invest in efficiency. We can change this pathway. But the world must give real change. Change we can believe in.
The agenda for Poznan
To set deep and drastic emission reduction targets for the developed world. We suggest 30-40 per cent reduction over 1990 levels by 2020.
To agree on national mitigation actions by developing countries—what will these be and what will they cost in terms of finance and technology transfer. These actions must be paid, not through a convoluted, cheap and corrupt mechanism like CDM, but through a rights-based mechanism. We either set up a global trading system based on equal per capita entitlements. Or agree on a carbon tax (one which hurts) on the developed world, so that the fund can pay for national actions to mitigate emissions including avoiding emissions from deforestation.
To agree on the fund for adaptation, based not on charity, but the right to development of the poor and the victims of climate change. It would be pathetic if the same world, which has spent trillions to bail out its banks and industry, cannot find ways to compensate the victims of its excesses.
Newer deal for the newer world
The world we know faces numerous challenges —from global economic recession to insecurity. Today our governments want to spend public money to bail out the global economy. This crisis is an opportunity to reinvent. The public money can be used not only to stimulate the economy, but also to help redesign an affordable and sustainable economy. In other words, we need a carefully constructed spending plan -- on new energy technologies to new mobility systems and urban infrastructure -- to create equitable and sustainable economies.
But for this, we need leaders who will not let us down. We need leaders who will take the challenge of climate change and turn it into the world’s biggest cooperative effort.
And for this, we must let them know loud and clear:
We don’t need corporate welfare. We need welfare for the people and the planet.
Weblink:
Precious little.
Weblink:
This graph tells the whole story. The blue line in graph denoting changes in CO2 emission for Annex 1 countries is completely deceptive. It shows a negative growth that suggests a reduction of emission in the rich countries. But there are countries bunched in that group knows as ‘economies in transition’ (EIT), countries that have joined Europe recently and have low economic activities. Rich industrialised countries are actually hiding behind these low income countries with low emission as shown in green line. The picture becomes clearer when we exclude those EIT countries and the graph in red line shows a clear positive growth in emission from the rich countries in Annex 1.
When we look at the growth of CO2 emission of selected rich countries between 1990 and 2006, a period when they were supposed to reduce emission, almost all countries barring a handful have actually increased their emission manifold.
Click here for sectorwise emission profile of industrialized economies.[.pdf]
Climate change is linked to emissions, in turn to economic growth. Limiting emissions is then about limiting growth. Thus, sharing growth between nations has been the main bugbear. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change expressed the principle of equity by enjoining countries to take action based on common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.
Consider the past
Climate change is about cumulative historical emissions—
a tonne of CO2 released in 1850 is equal to a tonne of CO2 released today. Rich countries account for about seven out of every 10 tonnes of CO2 that have been emitted since the start of the industrial era. Historical emissions amount to about 1,100 tonnes of CO2 per capita for the UK and the US, compared with 66 tonnes per capita for China and 23 tonnes per capita for India.
Historical burden
Share of global CO2 emissions, 1840-2006 (per cent)
Even at present:
Rich countries are still the major emitters of total CO2. Between 1980 and 2005, the total emissions of the US were almost double that of China and more than seven times that of India.
The current emissions from developed countries are still very high: with just 15 per cent of the world population, they account for 45 per cent of CO2 emissions
Cumulative emissions: 1980-2005
(million tonnes of CO2)
Unequal world
While China may be about to overtake the US as the world’s largest emitter of CO2, its per capita emissions are just one-fifth that of the US.
Emissions from India are increasing. Even so, its per capita carbon footprint is less than one-tenth of that in high-income countries. The per capita increase for Canada since 1990 (five tonnes) is higher than per capita emissions of China in 2005 (4.1 tonnes)
Per capita CO2 emissions, 2005
Big emitter and small emitter
When we are talking about action to manage climate change, can we compare US and India?
The per capita increase in emissions, between 1990 and 2005, in the US is three-fourths of India’s total per capita emissions in 2005. The current per capita emissions of the US is almost 20 times higher than India’s
Equity for all
The fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that to avoid serious ecological and economic damage, the global temperature should not exceed 2°C from the pre-industrial level—it has already increased 0.74°C. This in turn needs CO2 concentration not to exceed 350-400 parts per million (ppm). But this touched 379 ppm in 2005. If the world is to remain within the 2°C target, there is limited scope for future emissions.
The global budget is extremely tight. The question is how to share it. Over the years, different proposals have beenpresented. These have been based either on current and future emissions or historical emission burdens of different nations.
Current and future emissions
Three methods have been proposed under this approach:
l The sinks approach requires that the world not emit more than what the sinks can absorb. In 1991, the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (cse) proposed the concept of equal per capita entitlement based on available sinks on land and in oceans. Those on land are national property, but the oceans, which absorb around two billion tonnes of carbon (tC) each year, are global commons to which all people have an equal entitlement. Once entitlements are defined, low-level polluters would have an incentive to keep their emissions growth path low: trade unused emissions rights to high-level polluters.
l The budget approach requires an upper limit of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, and sets down the year by which this limit must be reached. This gives a budget of total emissions to be distributed equitably among nations on per capita basis. A country not using its quota in a given year can trade it.
l The convergence approach agrees on a per capita emission level to meet the 2°C target. This would provide each person about two tonnes of CO2 (tCO2) per year. Countries above this limit would have to cut emissions, while those below it would have the opportunity to increase emissions.
Historical emissions approach
While it industrialized over the past 150 years, the developed world emitted much more greenhouse gases (ghgs) than developing countries. This historical inequity can be accounted for in a number of ways to create equal entitlements.
l In 1989, the International Project for Sustainable Energy Paths proposed that if the climate system was to remain stable, the world could emit no more than 428 billion tC between 1950 and 2100. Nations would share this budget on a per capita basis over the same period. If developing countries continued to emit CO2 at their 1986 rate, the project said, their quota would not get over till 2241. Developed nations had already used their quota by 1986.
l A few months before the 1997 Kyoto agreement, Brazil proposed that emissions targets be determined on the basis of contribution to temperature increase up to 1990. This put the focus on industrialized countries; while they were responsible for 75 per cent of the total emissions, their share for temperature increase was 88 per cent. The proposal required that countries falling short of their targets be fined us $3.33 for each extra emission unit. The money thus accrued would go into a fund to finance mitigation and adaptation projects in developing countries.
l In 1990, Kirk Smith formerly of the University of California’s School of Public Health introduced the concept of natural debt, which accounted for cumulative emissions of each country from 1950. Just as there are economic disruptions when the financial debt grows too large, there will be ecological disruptions if the natural debt is too large, Smith argued. He showed the industrialized countries to be the largest natural debtors. He also showed that the international press’s current villains, India and China, will take decades to match the us in terms of natural debt. For instance, by 2025, India’s natural debt will be five times less than that of the US.
Today, seriously constrained by the amount of emissions it can put out in the atmosphere, governments of the rich world would like to rewrite the principle of burden sharing agreed in Rio. But civil society groups are proposing alternatives, which need to be considered and examined.
Recent moves
With the issue of burden sharing being debated for a post-2012 agreement, new frameworks have been proposed by civil society groups
Cap and share
The model, proposed earlier this year by the Ireland-based Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability, requires that the world first agree to a maximum emissions level from burning fossil fuels. Once the emissions cap is fixed, emission levels for a year would be shared equally among the global adult population. Each individual would receive a pollution authorization permit which could be sold at market rates. Fossil fuel companies could buy permits from financial institutions to cover emissions from their products.