Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
their “contraction and convergence” proposal. Their idea is that overall
emissions should contract to a safe level, and that per capita emissions
should converge to the same level for all. It can hardly be faulted on moral
grounds.
But the political feasibility of persuading north Americans, Europeans
and Australasians to agree to massive cuts in emissions which, if low-
carbon energy cannot match the potency of today's fossil fuels, will com-
promise their current lifestyles, so that China and India can raise their
standard of living, is quite another matter. That is why we need action on
the supply side.
A low-carbon diet for the wealthy
Low-carbon technology is the only “get out of jail” card the rich countries
can play so that they can avoid having to cut their own energy use in par-
allel with their emissions. But the industrialized countries will also have to
be far more generous in sharing low-carbon energy techniques to devel-
oping countries than they have historically been with other technologies.
The large pharmaceutical companies' discounts in the price of drugs to
help developing countries in order to combat AIDS and diseases such as
malaria might be seen as a precedent for low-carbon technology transfer
to developing countries.
Differentiation EU-style
An agreement within the 27-nation European Union in late 2008 pro-
vides one example of how differentiation can be successfully negotiated.
The poorer EU members, mostly located in Central and Eastern Europe,
have been given less demanding national targets, in terms of increasing
renewable energy and reducing emissions, than their richer EU brethren
in Western Europe. So at one extreme there is Romania, which is only
required to make a 6.2 percentage-point renewable increase in its energy
mix. And at the other extreme lies the UK, which has been given the big-
gest target - a 13.7 percentage-point increase. The same sort of differen-
tiation exists in emissions, with poorer Eastern countries being allowed to
increase emissions in sectors like transport, service and agriculture, and
richer Western member states being required to cut emissions in these
areas.
This differentiation among the member states was politically necessary
in order to get their agreement to the collective EU goal of an average
