Differentiating Responsbility

The core of the Greenhouse Development Rights Framework is an indicator: The Responsibility and Capacity Indicator (RCI). It quantifies the responsibility for climate change and the capacity to act. As for responsibility, the indicator takes into account the cumulative emissions since 1990 of the population living above a development threshold of 9000$/capita income (PPP adjusted).

Benito Müller and others have published already last October a paper on “Differentiating (Historic) Responsibilities for Climate Change”. Looks like a quite interesting methodological contribution.

The Report recognises two distinct kinds of responsibility, namely strict (or unlimited) responsibility, and limited responsibility, which are based on, but different from, the causal contribution to climate change. The latter equals cumulative historic emissions of the greenhouse gases CO2, CH4 and N2O (incl. those from land use change and forestry).

In order to determine a country’s share in the strict responsibility for the climate change problem, it is allocated a part of the harmless global emissions on a per capita basis. This ‘basic allowance’ is then subtracted from the country’s historic emissions, with the remainder (if any) determining its share in strict responsibility for the problem.

The limited responsibility calculations were restricted to post-1990 emissions. The justified need to grow, in turn, was implemented through the introduction of individual subsistence allocations’ of 2tCO2eq. per poor inhabitant (the average per capita energy emissions of the developing world), which were allocated to every inhabitant surviving on less than $1 a day.

The latter concept of limited responsibility is quite similar to the one applied in calculating the RCI, with a difference only in calculating the subsistence emissions. It could well serve as an alternative approach to calculating the responsibility part in the RCI. Still, we have never claimed that the way the RCI is calculated is the only one that makes sense. We just claim it is defensibly fair.

Looking at the different shares that countries have in causal contribution, strict and limited responsibility, it is quite interesting to observe the differences (click at the thumbnail above to see the full graph). Interesting enough, India has a small but relevant share of the causal contribition, but no share of strict or limited responsibility. China, on the contrary, has an equally relevant share of 11-12% of the causal contribution and the limited responsibility. In this case, the limited responsibility is quite high, probably due to the fact that the share of the population surviving on less than $1 a day is much smaller than in India.

Well worth reading, this Summary Report.

GDRs and the way forward from Bali

GDRs is a very nice and somehow ‘balanced’ concept, because there is an inconvenient truth in it for both sides of the North-South divide:

For the North: The inconvenient truth is that even the more ambitious of the actually discussed reduction commitments for the North (-25-40% until 2020) are insufficient if they are meant as a measure of the total effort of the North, partly to be fulfilled through emissions trading abroad. We need these ambitious domestic reductions plus strong support for mitigation in the South.

For the South: The inconvenient truth is, that there need to be obligations for some parts of the South as well in the upcoming commitment period (yes, they are small, because they correspond to the Southern countries share of responsibility and capacity). In addition, strong reductions in the South financed by the North are necessary.

The GDRs framework made it clear:

If we want to keep global temperature rise below 2C, emission reductions both in developed and developing countries need to happen. But if we want the associated effort to be shared equitably, a large part of the emission reductions in the South need to be financed by the North.

An echo of these inconvenient truths is contained in the outcomes of the Bali Action Plan. There it was agreed to start negotiations on:

Enhanced national/international action on mitigation of climate change, including, inter alia, consideration of:

(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;

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;

The dramatic very last hours of the Bali negotiations made it clear, that there is clearly a link between the level of the “mitigation actions” to be undertaken by developing countries, and the level of support they are going to get for this. This corresponds quite nicely to the logic of the GDRs concept.

After Bali, we saw efforts from the Bush administration to backpedal on these decisions. Unsurprisingly.

But also an important voice from developing countries seems to strive backwards to the times before Bali, rather than forward from Bali toward Copenhagen. In a column for the Malaysian “Star”, Martin Khor from Third World Network reported from the discussions on climate change in the UN General Assembly. He quotes himself:

The Kyoto Protocol must be supported, and the first task is to correct the misconception that it expires in 2012 and must be replaced.

What is expiring is the first commitment period (for emission cuts) of the developed countries, and this is to be followed by a second commitment period for which negotiations are already taking place.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol should be defended, as they contain good principles such as that developed countries must take the lead, and developing countries will act to the extent that the developed countries meet their finance and technology commitments.

The post-Bali process should firstly focus on implementation of existing commitments, as the performance is poor.

The developed countries have to meet their emission targets and their technology and finance obligations (which have not been fulfilled), if developing countries are to have confidence that they will be assisted.

While I agree with many of Martin’s views, I disagree with the assertion that we can content ourselves with focusing on the implementation of existing commitments under Kyoto and the negotiation of further commitments under a second commitment period. This would amount to backpedal from the Bali Action Plan. But we need to move forward from Bali, and work towards clear and binding linkages between measurable, reportable and verifiable mitigation actions by developing countries and equally measurable, reportable and verifiable support by developed countries for that purpose. We need to use our creativity to find ways how this can happen.

There is no time to loose. Let us focus our energy on demanding much more agressive binding reduction commitments by developed countries, and adequate levels of funding both for adaptation and mitigation in the South. Delaying tactics are not on the order of the day.

Welcome

This blog, which is just stumbling into life, is intended for public discussion of the Greenhouse Development Rights Framework — aka GDRs.

The Greenhouse Development Rights framework is designed to support an emergency climate stabilization program while, at the same time, preserving the right of all people to reach a dignified level of sustainable human development free of the privations of poverty. More specifically, the GDRs framework quantifies national responsibility and capacity with the goal of providing a coherent, principle-based way to think about national obligations to pay for both mitigation and adaptation.

The official GDRs homepage is hosted by EcoEquity here – check it out. For those speaking German, there is also some information on the pages of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung.

Most of the people who blog here will be “Friends of Greenhouse Development Rights.” But perhaps not all?

Cheers, toma