Back before Copenhagen, the World Wildlife Fund released a study in which it compared Contraction and Convergence, Common but Differentiated Convergence, and Greenhouse Development Rights, and then almost endorsed GDRs.   More recently, WWF India has taken that study off the shelf and presented its results in a number of prominent venues.  The presentation, here, is notable for its clarity, and its open tone.  It still almost endorses GDRs, but it really is “An offer for discussion.”

Also notable in this presentation is the completeness with which the remaining budget is presented:

To be consistent with staying well below 2 degree C
1.  Emission budget of 1660 GtCO2eq between 1990 and 2050 excluding LUCF, or about 1000 GtCO2eq between 2010 and 2050 (taking account of emissions 1990 – 2010)
2   Assuming that emissions from LUCF remains constant at 2.  Assuming that emissions from LUCF remains constant at 4GtCo2 until 2010 and decline to zero between 2010 and 2020; becoming a stable net sink of emissions afterwards
3.  Allowable global emission of ~ 22 GtCO2eq/year globally on average 2010 – 2050. Compared to >50 GtCO2eq/y today.

And there’s also this note, which is almost in a class by itself:

‘Negative’ allowances for Annex I reflect on substantive funding requirements for poorer nations to get below their allowances
•   Negative allowances for Annex 1 countries, also provide opportunities for emerging economies to grow, but by integrating low carbon development path.  An emissions budget of about 900/1000 Gt CO2e (2009-2050) requires to leave about 80% of all known conventional and unconventional recoverable fossil fuel reserves under ground.

This notable paper, written by Aaditya Mattoo and Arvind Subramanian of the World Bank’s Development Research Group,is notable not only for its providence but for its argument, which is admirably clear.  The abstract does a good job, so here it is:

“This paper presents an analytical framework to encompass contributions to the literature on equity in climate change, and highlights the consequences—in terms of future emissions allocations—of different approaches to equity.  Progressive cuts relative to historic levels—for example, 80 percent by industrial countries and 20 percent by developing countries—in effect accord primacy to adjustment costs and favor large current emitters such as the United States, Canada, Australia, oil exporters, and China.  In contrast, principles of equal per capita emissions, historic responsibility, and ability to pay favor some large and poor developing countries such as India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, but hurt industrial countries as well as many other developing countries.  The principle of preserving future development opportunities has the appeal that it does not constrain developing countries in the future by a problem that they did not largely cause in the past, but it shifts the burden of meeting climate change goals entirely to industrial countries.  Given the strong conflicts of interest in defining equity in emission allocations, it may be desirable to shift the emphasis of international cooperation toward generating a low-carbon technology revolution.  Equity considerations would then play a role not in allocating a shrinking emissions pie but in informing the relative contributions of countries to generating such a pie-enlarging revolution.”

[Read more…]

Written by a large, somewhat ad hoc consortium of NGOs as  input into the deliberations of the UN High Level Advisory Group on Climate Finance (AGF), this paper is the most comprehensive civil society statement yet of how so-called “international” or “innovative” finance should properly work.  It closely considers the necessary scale, the sources appropriate to, and the conditions necessary to the equitable and adequate operationalization of such finance.   In this regard, it is the authoritative civil society statement, or at least it was, at the time of its publication.

Interestingly, this paper is evidence for the claim that the the “equity debate” is converging on a widely shared understanding.   When equity frameworks enter into the analysis, only two, closely-related frameworks are considered relevant to the problem at hand in the negotiations.  Unsurprisingly, they are the “climate debt framework” and Greenhouse Development Rights.

The equity debate has taken on some new life lately, particularly in India, where the government is actively reconsidering its position on fair-shares approaches to global climate diplomacy.   There’s no word yet on what India’s new position will be, but the recent publication of Meeting Equity in a Finite Carbon World: Global Carbon Budgets and Burden Sharing in Mitigation Actions, a “background” report by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, indicates that, at least in some circles, the debate is being taken seriously.   Indeed, Tata’s background report was followed by a high-level conference that discussed it, and then the publication of Global Carbon Budgets and Equity in Climate Change, an extremely interesting and forthright set of conference papers and post-conference reflections.

The goal of the Tata report, clearly, was to promote a focused, high-level discussion of the “carbon-budget” approach, whereby all people receive an equal allocation to the earth’s cumulative carbon budget.  In this is was apparently quite successful.  There is much to say here, and a great deal to like, but for the moment we will make only two points.  [Read more…]

This joint statement was released by the Initiative for Policy Dialog, a network/organization formed by Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz to stimulate “a heterodox policy dialogue on major issues in international development.”  Judging by the results of the IPD’s dialog on burden sharing, it does a pretty good job.   The group that was brought together was certainly heterodox, and approached the problem with refreshing straight-forwardness.   For example, it concluded that “Equal per-capita rights to the atmosphere, based on cumulative emissions from a reference date population, remain the minimum ethical standard for an equitable climate change agreement.”   That’s minimum.