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Home Systemic sustainability: the ultimate frontier Yet black is greener than green War: The elephant in the sustainability room A convenient tale PDCs to advance reductions beyond NDCs COP21: Historic, historical or hysterical? COP20: CBDR or ECBDR? Doha: Gateway or Giveaway? An epic battle in the wrong war What it takes to be sustainable Making the Copenhagen Accord equitable Post-2012 climate regime: equitable, effective, sufficient? An equitable and effective climate regime Are global citizens equal before the Climate Convention? Decarbonising with renewables? Extremely difficult Financial crisis and sustainable development |
COP21: Historic, historical or hysterical? According to Laurent Fabius, Foreign Minister of France and President of the COP 21, the Paris Agreement is "ambitious and balanced". This view is shared by many officials. Regrettably, the numbers tell otherwise. Ambitious? For the sake of simplicity, let us assume that carbon uptake by natural sinks has no adverse effects on climate. Thus, stabilizing the climate would require stopping airborne emissions, i.e. 19 billion tons CO2 (as of 2010). In the best case scenario, the INDCs would limit the increase of emissions in 2030 to 7.5 billion tons CO2 eq above the 2010 level. Therefore, the gap between the Paris Agreement and climate stabilization in 2030 remains enormous: over 26.5 billion tons CO2. Balanced? If “balanced” means that reductions are proportional to responsibilities, then parties emitting more should commit to higher reductions. Since emissions are ultimately caused by individuals, balanced reductions should be proportional to per-capita instead of absolute emissions. Current INDCs do not guarantee balanced contributions to emission reductions. Brazil and the US provide a good example of how imbalanced INDCs actually are. Brazil pledged to reduce more than the US (37% vs. 28%, reference 2005, target 2025), despite having far lower CO2 emissions (2.0 vs. 22.6 tons/cap-yr, reference 1990, target 2008-2012). The inequity flaw It is important to realize that reduction commitments imply de facto emission rights. When a party commits to reduce emissions by 20%, it also acquires the right to emit the remaining 80%. When the Kyoto Protocol set reductions on absolute emissions of parties, it also granted de facto emission rights. The resulting per-capita emission rights of parties are however unequal, breaching the principle that individuals are equal in rights, as established in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. This flaw in the Protocol also contravenes the basis of equity established in the Convention. The inequity flaw of the Kyoto Protocol was carried over to the Paris Agreement. This is not surprising, as the Agreement uses the same architecture as the Protocol, i.e. reductions are set on absolute emissions of parties. The resulting inequitable emission rights are completely ignored, despite the repetitive claims of equity made along the Agreement.
Ironically, the renowned motto “Liberté, égalité, fraternité” does include
equality… Sources:
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