What might a fair share of emissions look like?

Martin Khor notes the historically large amount of emissions from rich nations that have helped them develop.

Assuming by 2050 that 600 gigatons of carbon emissions is the limit that needs to be reached to prevent climate change getting worse, Khor looked at fairer allocation of emissions based on per capita emissions, taking into account what has already been emitted by rich countries (“Annex 1”) and non-Annex 1 countries (i.e the rest of the world).

Noting that rich countries have already had their chance to develop and emitted more in than their fair share in the process, is there a way to redress so the end result is equitable for all?

A fairer allocation is possible while allowing poorer countries to develop but would require the rich countries to cut back significantly.

This can be seen in the following:

By 2008, the rich nations had already counted for the majority of carbon emissions, since 1800: 240 gigatons (Gt), vs 91 Gt from the rest of the world:

But it is likely that emissions by 2050 will mean rich countries have ended up using some 325 Gt (of the 600 total that is aimed for), or just over 50%. Yet, it needs to be around 20% (because the rich nations are roughly 20% of the population):

The 20% allocation could be achieved if rich countries accept they owe a “carbon debt” which would also allow the rest of the world to develop:

Khor describes the notion of “negative emissions” which includes knowledge and technology sharing with developing nations to help them combat climate change.

It now seems unfair on rich countries! They now have to cut their emissions significantly and help finance poor countries’ to emit more! But there is a logic to this:

• The “polluting” ways the industrialized nations used to industrialize is not to be encouraged for the rest of the world.
• Those polluting ways are also considered the cheaper, or easier way to develop, which, as the Centre for Science and Environment noted earlier, was akin to free-riding on the atmospheric commons.
• Given this “low-hanging” fruit is not encouraged for developing countries, their path to development requires more costly measures.
• Given industrialized nations have used up most of the “low-hanging fruit”, it seems fair that they help developing countries down an alternative path (which would still lead to economic benefits for industrialized nations because they would likely be leaders in developing such technology required by developing nations).

In some ways, the above numbers are simplistic and generalized. For example

• Not all of today’s industrialized nations were necessarily industrialized in the past (though many were)
• Population ratios may have changed in this time period so such factors would need to be brought in to create more accurate numbers.
• Also, in the past industrialized nations have emitted greenhouse gases while producing items used by others around the world. (Although, industrialized nations have, for many years, consumed more resources compared to developing countries than they do today so have often produced for themselves more than for the poorer countries.)
• This producing for others also happens today. China for example, claims around one third of its production is for consumption by the rich part of the world, and there is more globalization today than in the past whereby poorer nations are encouraged to create exports for richer nations.

As crude and high-level as the actual numbers may be, it highlights that social justice and equity issues have been ignored from climate negotiations and from mainstream media discussions in the industrialized world, allowing views such as needing China and India to make drastic cuts more palatable than should be, perhaps.

The other challenge is that to achieve the reduction by 2050, reductions need to start in advance, while the developing nations are mostly poor, as Tom Athanasiou of EcoEquity highlights:

(Just as the above has been written, the global conservation organization, WWF, released a report detailing how carbon budgets can be allocated and shared equitably amongst nations using principles similar to the above. They measure emissions using carbon dioxide equivalents (C0₂eq), rather than carbon which Khor uses above, but given the ratio of carbon in carbon dioxide is approximately 27%, the 970gt CO₂eq that WWF estimate as the budgetable global emissions between 1990 and 2050 is almost the same as Khor’s numbers.)

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