Showdown in Copenhagen The Climate Negotiations face Reality

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Showdown in CopenhagenThe Climate Negotiations
face Reality

• Tom Athanasiou
• EcoEquity

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The Right to Development in a Climate Constrained
World The
Greenhouse Development Rights Framework

• Authors
• Tom Athansiou (EcoEquity)
• Sivan Kartha (Stockholm Environment Institute)
• Paul Baer (EcoEquity)
• Eric Kemp-Benedict (SEI)
• Key Collaborators
• Jörg Haas (European Climate Foundation)
• Lili Fuhr (Heinrich Boll Foundation)
• Nelson Muffuh (Christian Aid)
• Andrew Pendleton (IPPR)
• Antonio Hill (Oxfam)
• Supporters
• Christian Aid (UK)
• Oxfam (International)
• European Aprodev Network
• The Heinrich Böll Foundation (Germany)
• MISTRA Foundation CLIPORE Programme (Sweden)

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• The Science

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Arctic Sea Ice melting faster than expected
2005
2007
The sea ice cover is in a downward spiral and
may have passed the point of no return. The
implications for global climate, as well as
Arctic animals and people, are disturbing. Mark
Serreze, NSIDC, Oct. 2007.
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Sea levels rising faster than expected
Nile Delta 2000
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Sea levels rising faster than expected
Nile Delta 1 meter sea level increase
Nile Delta 2000

• IPCC-AR4 0.18 0.59 m by 2100
• Post-AR4 0.8 to 2.4 m by 2100 (Hansen
  several meters)

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Global sinks are weakening
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Tipping Elements in the Climate System
Lenton et al, 2008
Even 2ºC risks catastrophic, irreversible impacts
The climate crisis demands an emergency
mobilization
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• The Emergency Pathway

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Global 2ºC pathways and their risks
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Emergency pathways details
Baer and Mastrandrea (2007) Carbon
concentrations in these scenarios peak and
decline (rather than stabilize).
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• The Deep Structure of the
• Climate Problem

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The deep structure of the climate problem
Global 2ºc pathway
Emissions pathway in the South
Emissions pathway in the North
What kind of climate regime can enable this to
happen?
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in the midst of a development crisis?

• 2 billion people without access to clean cooking
  fuels
• More than 1.5 billion people without electricity
• More than 1 billion have poor access to fresh
  water
• About 800 million people chronically
  undernourished
• 2 million children die per year from diarrhea
• 30,000 deaths each day from preventable diseases

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• The Deep Structure
• of the Climate Solution

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UNFCCC The preamble

• Acknowledging the global nature of climate
  change calls for the widest possible cooperation
  by all countries and their participation in an
  effective and appropriate international response,
  in accordance with their common but
  differentiated responsibilities and respective
  capabilities

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Negotiations for a shared vision must be based
on an equitable burden sharing paradigm that
ensures equal sustainable development potential
for all citizens of the world and that takes into
account historical responsibility and respective
capabilities as a fair and just approach. G-5
Political Declaration Sapporo, Japan, 8 July
2008 in response to the G-8 statement, Hokkaido,
Japan, 2008
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Countries will be asked to meet different
requirements based upon their historical share or
contribution to the problem and their relative
ability to carry the burden of change. This
precedent is well established in international
law, and there is no other way to do it. Al
Gore (New York Times Op-Ed, 7/1/2007)
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A viable climate regime must

• Ensure the rapid mitigation required by an
  emergency climate stabilization program
• Support the deep, extensive adaptation programs
  that will inevitably be needed
• While at the same time safeguarding the
• right to development

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• Greenhouse Development Rights
• Towards Principle-based Global Differentiation

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The Greenhouse Development Rightsapproach to
effort sharing

• Define National Obligation (national share of
  global mitigation and adaptation costs) based on
  
• Capacity resources to pay w/o sacrificing
  necessities
• We use income, excluding income below the 20/day
  (7,500/year, PPP) development threshold
• Responsibility contribution to climate change
  
• We use cumulative CO2 emissions, excluding
  subsistence emissions (i.e., emissions
  corresponding to consumption below the
  development threshold)

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The Greenhouse Development Rights approach

• Defines and calculates national obligations
• as fractions of global obligations
• with respect to a global development threshold
• Allows people with incomes and emissions below
  the threshold to prioritize development
• Obliges people with incomes and emissions above
  the threshold (in both the North South) to
  share the global costs of an emergency climate
  program

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The Development threshold

• What should a Right to Development safeguard?
• Traditional poverty line 1/day? 2/day?
• (destitution line and extreme poverty
  line of World Bank, UNDP, etc.)
• Empirical analysis 16/day
• (global poverty line, after Pritchett/World
  Bank (2006))
• For indicative calculations, consider development
  threshold 25 above global poverty line
• ? about 20/day (7,500/yr PPP-adjusted)

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Income and Capacity showing projected national
income distributions in 2010, and capacity in
green
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Emissions vs. Responsibility Cumulative fossil
CO2 (since 1990) showing portion considered
responsibility
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National obligations based on capacity and
responsibility
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• Steps
• Towards a Fair and Adequate
• Global Accord

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The Framework ConventionThe North pays the full
incremental costs of the climate transition

• Annex 2 is to provide such financial resources,
  including for the transfer of technology, needed
  by the developing country Parties to meet the
  agreed full incremental costs of implementing
  measures (UNFCCC, Art. 4.3)
• These include full incremental costs associated
  with the development, application and diffusion,
  including transfer, of technologies, practices
  and processes to control greenhouse gas
  emissions and the formulation and implementation
  of national and, where appropriate, regional
  programmes containing measures to mitigate
  climate change. (UNFCCC, Art. 4.1)
• The extent to which developing country Parties
  will effectively implement their commitments
  under the Convention will depend on the effective
  implementation by developed country Parties of
  their commitments under the Convention related to
  financial resources and transfer of technology
  and will take fully into account that economic
  and social development and poverty eradication
  are the first and overriding priorities of the
  developing country Parties. (UNFCCC, Art. 4.7)

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The Bali Action Plan

• To launch a comprehensive process to enable the
  full, effective and sustained implementation of
  the Convention ...
• 1(b)(i) Measurable, reportable and verifiable
  nationally appropriate mitigation commitments or
  actions, including quantified emission limitation
  and reduction objectives, by all developed
  country Parties, while ensuring the comparability
  of efforts among them, taking into account
  differences in their national circumstances
• 1(b)(ii) Nationally appropriate mitigation
  actions by developing country Parties in the
  context of sustainable development, supported and
  enabled by technology, financing and
  capacity-building, in a measurable, reportable
  and verifiable manner

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Allocating global mitigation obligationsamong
countries according to their RCI
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Copenhagen phase - to 2017
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After 2017 - Global burden sharing
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• National / Regional Examples

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Example 1

• The United States

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Implications for United States
US mitigation obligation amounts to a reduction
target exceeding 100 after 2025 (negative
emission allocation).
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Implications for United States
Here, physical domestic reductions (25 below
1990 by 2020) are only part of the total US
obligation. The rest would be met
internationally.
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Example 2

• China and India

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Implications for China ???????
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Implications for China ???????
A large fraction of China's reduction, (and most
of the reductions in the South) are driven by
industrialized country reduction commitments.
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Implications for India
The majority of the reductions in the South are
driven by industrialized country reduction
commitments.
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US and China
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• Financial Implications

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What are the costs?
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National Obligations in 2020 (for climate costs
1 of GWP)
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Climate obligations, imagined as a (mildly
progressive) tax
Note European Union effort-sharing proposal
estimates global mitigation costs at 175
billion, or about .25 of projected 2020 Gross
World Product
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Final Comments

• The scientific evidence is a wake-up call.
  Carbon-based growth is no longer an option in the
  North, nor in the South.
• A rigorous, binding commitment, by the North, to
  substantial technology financial assistance is
  critical. (MRV for MRV) Domestic reductions
  in the North are only half of the Norths
  obligation.
• The Copenhagen showdown
• In principle, a corresponding commitment from the
  consuming class in the South is also necessary.
• In practice, the Copenhagen Period must be based
  on trust-building while acting.
• The alternative to something like this is a weak
  regime with little chance of preventing
  catastrophic climate change
• This is about politics, not only about equity and
  justice.

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• www.GreenhouseDevelopmentRights.org
• Full report released at Poznan
• Access to online calculator and dataset
• National and regional reports available
• Email info authors_at_ecoequity.org

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