Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Principles to guide our actions
Political and academic debates over equity, responsibility and capacity have
focused on the unequal contributions of different states to the accumulated
atmospheric store of greenhouse gases, and the economic wealth and capacity
that have accrued to developed states since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
(A separate but related argument about responsibility applies to national actions
since 1990, when the IPCC first provided an incontrovertible baseline for scien-
tific and political acknowledgement of climate change as an international issue.)
Developing states emphasize that this (mis)appropriation of the atmospheric
commons by developed states has infringed their sovereign right to develop via a
path of fossil fuel-based industrialization and, further, that developed states bear
a responsibility for the climate damage they have wrought. The principles under-
lying their claims have variously been termed the 'beneficiary pays' principle
(referring to the benefits derived by states using the global atmospheric commons
for their advantage) and the 'polluter pays' principle (referring to the future
damage of global warming). These principles are reflected in the architecture
of the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol, with their grouping of Parties based on
development status - for instance, the Annex 1 and non-Annex 1 lists - and
underpin assertions about the additional responsibilities of developed nations to
take leading steps in mitigation.
Claims about climate change, wealth and inequity are often also founded on
the egalitarian view that individuals have rights to an equal share of the atmos-
phere, sometimes termed the 'per capita emissions rights' principle. According
to this view, the historical benefits of fossil fuel-based economic development
are inequitably distributed because clusters of individuals have 'appropriated'
more than their fair share of the global emissions space. Many developing states
support the idea that, at minimum, future access to remaining emissions 'space'
should be equally shared on a per capita basis, using a 'contraction and conver-
gence' model that would allow them to increase or stabilize their emissions while
major developed country emitters make considerable reductions, all converging
at an equal per capita emissions level at some future point (Meyer 2000).
Such considerations have, in combination, led to a variety of arguments,
claims, and formulae for how
mitigation and adaptation
effort and cos
ts should
best be apportioned to reflect equity, historical responsibility, development and
capacity, and nominating how the
remaining quota of atmospheric emissions
should
be shared (e.g. Hohne et
al., 2003; Heywood, 2007; Baer et al, 2008; Gardiner,
2010). Depending on where the 'baseline' for historical responsibility, or the
future point of convergence, is established, developed states owe more or less to
developing states under a global budget model. Depending on whether and how
carbon rights are accorded to individuals or states, more or less of that fossil-
fueled development is 'owed' by and to specific states.
These arguments (and ones which follow) suggest three principles to guide the
determination of Australia's short and longer term targets, which should:
