Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
UNFCCC
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was created at
the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 to negotiate a worldwide agreement for reducing GHGs and
limiting the impact of climate change. The UNFCCC officially came into force on 21
March 1994. As of March 2014, UNFCCC has 196 parties. Enshrined within the UNFCCC
are a number of principles including agreement by consensus of all parties and differential
responsibilities. The latter is because the UNFCCC acknowledges that different countries
have emitted different amounts of GHGs and therefore need to make greater or lesser ef-
forts to reduce their emissions. To represent this formally at the negotiations two different
groups of parties have been recognized: Annex I countries, which include all the developed
countries, and non-Annex I, which include the less developed and rapidly developing coun-
tries. Annex I was subsequently divided when some countries argued that their economies
were in transition. As a result, the richest countries were placed in an additional category,
Annex II. The UNFCCC pays heed to the principle of contraction and convergence. This is
the idea that the largest emitters of GHGs contract the amount of pollution towards a desig-
nated per-capita emissions total. For example, at the moment in the USA each person emits
ten times more carbon dioxide than a person in India. For global equality, the amount emit-
ted per person should be the same. To obtain an atmospheric carbon dioxide level that is
stable at 450 ppm countries would have to rapidly drop their per-capita emissions to 2
tonnes per person per year.
Figure 31
shows how far away from that level many developed
and developing countries are. In the developed world, to ensure that other countries can de-
velop as rapidly as possible,policy makers may have to consider an ultimate zero-carbon
budget for their country. Some countries who can export renewable or alternative energy
may even be able to produce a negative carbon economy. But considering the state of the
climate change negotiations these discussions are not yet occurring.
