Equity, climate change and the right to development

1. Paul Baer Assistant Professor Georgia Tech School of Public Policy Guest Lecture, EAS 2803 February 28, 2012 Equity, climate change and the right to development

2. Future engineer? Born in Berkeley, CA 1962 Grew up in Houston 1972-1980 listening to Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith Had actual “records”

3. Future Scholar? Attended Stanford University, 1980-1984 Started studying physics, ended up with a degree in economics Worked in the Internet industry 1988-1997 MS in environmental planning from LSU, 1999 PhD from UC Berkeley in 2005, “Energy and Resources”

4. Other stuff about me • Co-founded EcoEquity in 2000 • Co-authored a book, Dead Heat: Global Justice and Global Warming in 2002 • Both with long-time collaborator Tom Athanasiou • Post-doctoral research at Stanford University while living in Salt Lake City and Jersey City • Co-authored “Greenhouse Development Rights” framework for fair global climate policy • Started at Georgia Tech in 2009

5. What am I? • An interdisciplinary environmental scholar, policy analyst and advocate • An ecological economist • A philosopher of sorts (specializing in “climate ethics”) • An expert in global climate policy • Kind of an expert in the management of scientific uncertainty • Teach statistics, environmental policy, climate policy (next spring)

6. Starting in the middle: Greenhouse Development Rights • A global climate policy framework for “burden sharing” • Assigns obligations to countries based on aggregating the wealth and GHG emissions of their citizens • “Capacity” (ability to pay) • and “responsibility” (contribution to the problem) • Excludes from consideration the wealth and emissions of poor individuals, below a “development threshold” • Rich individuals are treated equally (have obligations) wherever they live • In principle, an individually-based “right to development”

7. Things you might want to know (or I might want you to know) • Why do I think this might be helpful? • How would it work in theory? • How “realistic” is it in practice? • What are important alternative approaches? • How do you justify it ethically?

8. Some important premises… • The climate problem is VERY serious • To reduce risks to a tolerably low level, we need to reduce emissions immediately and rapidly • While this is not prohibitively expensive in a conventional economic sense, it is not free, and it is potentially very redistributive • Global cooperation requires a solution that is “fair enough”

9. Some additional premises… • Ideas matter • The influence that ideas have depends on both the ideas and the ways they are promoted • The norms that are embodied in the UNFCCC are important but not unproblematic • “Common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities”

10. From the UNFCCC, Article III, Principles The Parties should protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind, on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. Accordingly, the developed country Parties should take the lead in combating climate change and the adverse effects thereof.

11. From the preamble to the UNFCCC:Historical responsibility and expected emissions growth Noting that the largest share of historical and current global emissions of greenhouse gases has originated in developed countries, that per capita emissions in developing countries are still relatively low and that the share of global emissions originating in developing countries will grow to meet their social and development needs,

12. From the preamble to the UNFCCC:Priority of development over environment Recognizing that States should enact effective environmental legislation, that environmental standards, management objectives and priorities should reflect the environmental and developmental context to which they apply, and that standards applied by some countries may be inappropriate and of unwarranted economic and social cost to other countries, in particular developing countries,

13. From the preamble to the UNFCCC:Prioritizing development and poverty alleviation Affirming that responses to climate change should be coordinated with social and economic development in an integrated manner with a view to avoiding adverse impacts on the latter, taking into full account the legitimate priority needs of developing countries for the achievement of sustained economic growth and the eradication of poverty,

14. From the preamble to the UNFCCC:Prioritizing development with subsidized technologies Recognizing that all countries, especially developing countries, need access to resources required to achieve sustainable social and economic development and that, in order for developing countries to progress towards that goal, their energy consumption will need to grow taking into account the possibilities for achieving greater energy efficiency and for controlling greenhouse gas emissions in general, including through the application of new technologies on terms which make such an application economically and socially beneficial

15. However… • While there is still a strong correlation between income and emissions, the simple division between developed and developing countries, already blurred by 1992, has become untenable • Many non-Annex I countries have per capita incomes higher than many Annex I countries • There is now a G20, and the so-called “BASIC” countries (Brazil, South Africa, India, China) are recognized global powers • The large “emerging economies” have substantial elite and consumer classes, and compete for export markets

16. However… • The Annex I/non-Annex I division means wealthy individuals in poor countries have no obligations, while poor people in wealthy countries do • This is ethically very hard to justify unless this exemption can be seen to directly benefit the poor in developing countries • Thus it was not implausible to argue that the Kyoto Protocol was “unfair to the US”

17. However (continued) • The real problem was not the richest of the “developing” countries, it was the largest and most economically competitive • That is, China and India • Given their low per capita incomes and remaining widespread poverty, and their low per capita emissions, they could legitimately use a “right to development” argument to justify complete exemption (or subsidized reductions) • The US parties focused on China actually wanted no deal, not a fair deal

18. 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) Stockholm Environment Institute (Int’l) Rockefeller Brothers Fund (US) Town Creek Foundation (US)

19. Five key elements of GDRs • An indicator of capacity that excludes income below a threshold • An indicator of responsibility that similarly excludes “subsistence emissions” • A combination of responsibility and capacity into a single index • National obligations calculated by aggregating individual obligations to give a national percentage share • All countries treated the same!

20. Income and Capacity income distributions (relative to a “development threshold”)

21. Emissions and Responsibility fossil CO2 (since 1990) (showing portion defined as “responsibility”)

22. National obligations based on national “capacity” and “responsibility”

23. Allocating global mitigation obligationsamong countries according to their “RCI” 23

24. Allocating global mitigation obligationsamong countries according to responsibility & capacity 24

25. Implications for United States US mitigation obligation amounts to a reduction target exceeding 100% after ~2025 (“negative emission allocation”). 25

26. 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. 26

27. Implications for China 中国的测算结果 27

28. Implications for China 中国的测算结果 A fraction of China's reduction, (and most of the reductions in the South) are driven by industrialized country reduction commitments. 28

29. How does this fit in the real world? • GDRs is actually quite well known within the small world of climate policy wonks • The idea of a transition from Kyoto to a globally binding treaty is, um, in trouble • The Copenhagen Accord can be considered “pledge and review” • It becomes up to domestic constituencies to demand their countries do their “fair share” • Otherwise we’re in a “race to the bottom”

30. Slides after this were part of the original deck but were not shown

31. So: back to the beginning • By the time the climate problem was clearly identified in the late 1980s, global emissions already exceeded any “sustainable” level • Yet there was a vast disparity of current emissions – measured on a per capita basis – between the developed and developing countries (“North and South”) • This already implied that the South could not safely develop the way the North has, based on fossil fuels (and, recall, vast deforestation) • Yet there was no option for inexpensive alternative energy sources that allowed unrestricted economic development without increasing emissions

32. Detour: the conflict over development and globalization • The end of the colonial era in the 1950s and 1960s, and the rise of the “Third World” (e.g., the Non-Aligned Movement) had given rise to a consistent pattern of North/South conflict • The South blames the North for its economic problems and demands additional development assistance • The North blames the South for its own economic problems and demands economic liberalization • This conflict repeats itself in every domain of international negotiations, and climate is no exception

33. Enter the climate problem… • The climate problem demands we reduce total global emissions (and thus average per capita emissions) when they are currently vastly unequal • This can be usefully thought of as dividing a finite and shrinking pool of emissions rights, that have a significant economic value • Given the level of inequality, it was implausible for the North to demand (say) a global freeze on emissions, or equal percentage reductions worldwide • That would have transparently meant that the limits to the development of the South were directly linked to the much higher levels of consumption/emissions in the North

34. In fact… • The South demanded that the North “go first”, and this was recognized in both the UNFCCC (1992) and the Kyoto Protocol (1997) • Much ado was made in the language of the UNFCCC about the right to development • The North was not in a position to coerce the South into reducing economic growth by reducing emissions • So, rather than actually negotiate the sharing of a shrinking budget, the North chose to let global emissions continue to rise • Thus the North did not have to redistribute any significant resources

35. Details of GDRs – “subject to change without notice” • What is the measure of capacity? • Where is the “development threshold” set? • Is there increasing progressivity over the development threshold (e.g., a “luxury threshold”)? • What is the time period of responsibility accounting? • What gases and what sources are included?

36. A “Greenhouse Development Rights”approach to burden-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 a “development threshold” of $20/day ($7,500/year, PPP) Responsibility: contribution to climate change We use cumulative CO2 emissions, excluding “subsistence” emissions (i.e., emissions corresponding to consumption below the development threshold)

37. So, “burden sharing” is a prominent issue • Scholars of all sorts have been proposing policies with different methods for dividing the “bill” • There is general agreement on the need for “flexibility” – separating where reductions get made, from who pays for them • Equal per capita rights (to emit) has been a popular equity “focal point” • But, there’s not enough left for “equal” to be “fair” • Plus, there are still substantial variations in the correlation of emissions and wealth