We are very pleased to say that Greenpeace International’s new Energy [R]evolution study finds a prominent place for the Greenhouse Development Rights approach to global, fair-shares, cost sharing.   This, to be sure, is a largely techno-economic study, but Greenpeace does not imagine that rapid technological change will occur in the absence of a major commitment to equity and fairness.

With equity, though, and using only existing technology, the sky’s the limit.

The Energy [R]evolution demonstrates how the world can get from where we are now, to where we need to be in terms of phasing out fossil fuels, cutting CO₂ while ensuring energy security. This includes illustrating how the world’s carbon emissions from the energy and transport sectors alone can peak by 2015 and be cut by over 80 percent by 2050. This phase-out of fossil fuels offers substantial other benefits such as independence from world market fossil fuel prices as well as the creation of millions of new green jobs.

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This notice, from June 1, 2010 issue of the Financial Express in Dhaka in Bangladesh, is notable because it succinctly illustrates the way in Greenhouse Development Rights has come to define the equity debate in much of the world.  Note, in particular, that the focus is on the development threshold:

“There must be a radical change in governance the world over, with equity within and among nations as core principles. Alternative development philosophers and activists have proposed many innovative ways of realizing such equity and climate justice, provided these are made to work by a truly democratic, transparent global authority that is ecologically educated and committed. A Greenhouse Development Rights Framework was proposed by some last year. Under this, a $20 a day in purchasing power parity threshold on income/emission was determined. People below this —- meaning the vast majority, including much of the low-income, lower middle classes in poor countries —- would have no emissions-reduction obligation. Those above the threshold would be obliged to undertake cuts according to their responsibility( for climate change) and capability (for mitigation and adaptation). They would also have to help the poor cope with the impacts of climate change.

Although The Economics of Climate Change in China: Towards a Low Carbon Eonomy carries a formal release date of September 2010, the book is already finished – so we’ll take the opportunity here to note its existence.  Chapter 8 is entitled “Comparison of Equity Frameworks and a China Analysis of the Greenhouse Development Rights Concept,” and it’s followed immediately by another named “A Deep Carbon Reduction Scenario for China.”   Here’s the core of the abstract:

“This ground-breaking economic study, led by the Stockholm Environment Institute and the Chinese Economists 50 Forum, brings together leading international thinkers in economics, climate change, and development, to tackle some of the most challenging issues relating to China’s low-carbon development. This study maps out a deep carbon reduction scenario and analyses economic policies that shift carbon use, and shows how China can take strong and decisive action to make deep reductions in carbon emission over the next 40 years while maintaining high economic growth and minimizing adverse effects of a low-carbon transition. Moreover, these reductions can be achieved within the finite global carbon budget for greenhouse gas emissions, as determined by the hard constraints of climate science.”

The notice of GDRs in Bill McKibben’s latest — Eaarth: Making a life on a tough new planet — isn’t particularly long, but it’s just fine none the less.  To wit:

… how do you sit down and negotiate a global climate pact?  No one has tried harder to game out the scenarios than Tom Athanasiou and Paul Baer, the directors of the Greenhouse Development Rights Network, who point out that this will be the first time that developing nations have ever come to international talks with any real clout: after all, if they burn all their coal, there’s nothing the rest of us can do to ward off global warming.  And they have justice on their side, since they’ve done nothing to cause the global warming.  “The fact is, they’re not particularly disposed to experiments that, they fear, will close off the only routes to progress they’ve ever had.”