Greenhouse Development Rights

Climate Equity Reference Project

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Principle-based burden sharing and the Copenhagen transition

Earlier this year, in preparation for a pre-Copenhagen NGO policy summit, we prepared a framing and background paper called Principle-based Annex 1 Differentiation in the Copenhagen Accord.   It’s quite interesting, we think, as a guide to thought and debate, but do note that it was written with an expert audience in mind.

The conference was, we think, quite a successful one.  At least it was successful for us, for at it we realized that there was a clear need, one widely perceived within the NGO community, for a new kind of GDRs study, one designed to cast as much light as possible on the effort-sharing debate as we now know it.   To move forward with that study, we prepared a detailed Terms of Reference for a study which we call Principle-based burden sharing in an MRV world.

We are now moving ahead on this study, and plan to have it completed prior to the Cancun summit.

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One billion high emitters

We feature this, a pointer to Sharing global CO2 emission reductions among one billion high emitters,  since it is in certain ways quite parallel to our own  approach.  More precisely, the recent proposal by Chakravarty et al., just published in the Proceedings of the [US] National Academy of Sciences, as Greenwire notes, “loosely builds on the idea of ‘greenhouse development rights,'” which is does by by way of analytical machinery quite similar to our own.  There are of course differences, which we will note below, but above all we welcome this analysis as an important contribution to the debate.

[Read more…]

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GDRs gets a strong vote of support from South Africa

The recent negotiations (AWG-KP, Bonn, March 27) saw South Africa speak for GDRs in the opening plenary.   The context was principle-based burden sharing amoung the developed (Annex 1) countries, and South Africa showed a set of options that included a modified version of the GDRs Responsibility and Capacity Index.   Suffice it to say that we were quite pleased, but that some folks found the recommended Annex 1 targets to be rather… challenging.

For the background research behind this endorsement, see this report.

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COP14 in Poznan

The 14th Conference of Parties in Poznan, Poland is a major event for Greenhouse Development Rights.   The GDRs side event is a big deal, including the head of Mexican delegation, as well as representatives from Norwegian Finance Ministry and UNFCCC Secretariat.  There are lots of other GDRs events as well.  This is the first COP in which GDRs is actively promoted (see the Countdown to Copenhagen campaign) by a large number of campaign organizations, including not just Christian Aid but also many other members of the 17 member Aprodev network.

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Electoral programme of the German Greens for the European elections 2009 endorses GDRs

For those who read German…

Wir wollen, dass die Europäische Union und ihre Mitgliedstaaten auf Grundlage 
ihrer historischen Verantwortung und ihrer wirtschaftlichen Fähigkeit zur 
Finanzierung notwendiger  Anpassungs- und Reduktionsmaßnahmen in 
Entwicklungsländern beitragen. Das Recht auf Entwicklung muss im Mittelpunkt 
dieser Politik stehen. Wir unterstützen den Ansatz der  *Greenhouse Development 
Rights". Dabei werden die Reichen aller Länder in die  Reduktionsbemühungen 
einbezogen, während Menschen, die unter einer bestimmten  Wohlstandsgrenze 
leben, das Recht auf Entwicklung haben.