The whole world, in other words, must act.
"These numbers strengthen our conviction that industrialized countries will have to take the lead in reducing their emissions, but that the fight to prevent dangerous climate change can only be won if all countries act together," said Ottmar Edenhofer, a professor at the Technical University Berlin and co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group III. He was not affiliated with the research.
Other experts praise the framework's potential to cut through 17 years of climate stalemate. One particular strength, several said, is its embrace of the entire spectrum of emitters - the abject poor, the broad middle, the high emitters.
"It's ingenious," said Larry Susskind, a professor of environmental planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was not involved in the study. "It's a great way to shift the conversation."
The study assumes world leaders can agree to a global carbon emission reduction target. Once that's set, the big question is how to divide responsibility for meeting that target among different countries.
The new framework assigns that responsibility to individuals, not nations. The authors looked first at national income distributions based on World Bank data, then converted those distributions to carbon footprints based on emissions data from the Energy Information Agency.
The result is a series of projections showing the distribution of individual emissions for different regions. Each country worldwide would be assigned an emissions target based on the number of "high-emitter" individuals within their borders and their aggregate emissions. While all emissions contribute to global warming, the authors found that targeting the highest billion or so emitters gives the rest of the world room to continue to grow and develop.
"In principle," the authors wrote, "no country gets a pass, because even in the poorest countries some individuals have CO2 emissions above the universal emissions cap."
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The idea was born, in part, from travels to India and other developing countries, Socolow said, where thriving cities support a middle and upper class enjoying a decidedly high-carbon lifestyle.
"Lack of attention to sustainable objectives in the developing world among people who live like us means they're going to replicate the same wastefulness," he said. "If those countries are given a free pass for the next decade or two, they're going to use that time to do the same foolish things we did."
Scientists have long held that to prevent the most dire effects predicted under a disrupted climate, society must slash emissions from today's levels and drastically alter growth projections.
At a minimum, scientists agree, the world needs a 30 percent cut by 2030 with respect to business-as-usual projections - a daunting challenge. But this is not the biggest problem confronting the world's governments on the climate change front.
That problem would be the vast disparity—generally linked to wealth—in per-capita emissions across the globe.
Americans, on average, pump 20 tons of climate-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere a year. Europeans average between 10 and 12 tons. Chinese are closer to four tons. And some three billion people worldwide emit less than one ton per year.
How to close that gap has been a major stumbling block in climate negotiations since 1992, when 172 countries—including the United States—agreed to divide responsibilities for emissions cuts based on economics.
The idea was simple: Rich nations would take the lead on cuts, with developing nations following at some unspecified later date.
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12 Comments
Add CommentThis proposal is similar to a per capita emissions limit. It can not work and is not fair.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe poorest nations on our planet benefit from the technology created by the advanced nations. This technology benefits the few in the less developed nations, and they continue to exploit their poor. It is the intent of the rich in poorer nations to maintain a large poor uneducated community for their benefit. Any help received by their poor comes from the citizens of wealthy nations.
Everyday citizens from the wealthy nations provide huge amounts of aid to the poor. This aid has in fact added to the problem, populations are out of control because of the amount of food aid provided.
At the end of the day population is the underlying cause of climate change. Poor populations clear forests, kill wildlife and breed like rabbits.
Multiple species in an environment neutralise each others impact on the environment. Loss of biodiversity eliminates this neutralising effects.
Climate change is driven by over-population. It is politically correct to blame carbon dioxide and the other emissions for climate change, they are the result of an unsustainable population.
I remember reading an article in the late '80's in one of SA"s competitor's magazine (before it went broke over feeding the readers poorly researched info on some guy who swindled many over an invention heralded by that magazine, but that is another topic) ...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article I read was about a legitimate study on the New Zealand sheep population. Explanation being they were concerned because of their proximity to the actual Ozone hole...The study was on the only way I can think of it being called now is 'farts"? My conclusion to reading this was we're all gonna die when the polar ice cap melts because I won't give up my Taco Bell!!
Overpopulation! I agree. However, be it poor or rich countries,I think it fair to have GLOBAL standards in high emission industries and with their vehicles. Make plans that benefit the 'green' up clean up...TRYING to not have one GOOD be canceled by 10 million BADS....and the New Zealand sheep population and Taco Bell.... < Smile>
I wonder how much they would fine Al Gore for his 1000,s of tons of carbon foot print.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"....virtually every country has a class of individuals - the so-called "high emitters" - enjoying a rich, carbon-intensive lifestyle."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the U.S. this class would include congress, movie stars and corporate executives. You know, the ones who lecture ordinary people about carbon emissions. Al Gore is the president of this class.
I think it is unfair to count CO2 emissions on yearly basis for the countries. CO2 is being accumulated in the atmosphere since centuries. I would propose to agree on a date to start to calculate the total emission figures. That is for example starting from year 1900 the total emission produced for the countries should be calculated. Than the total emission produced since 2009-1900= 109 years devided by the population should be calculated. Every country/person should have the right to produce that much of emission found by the max figure calculated by above calculation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt would be very unfair to put every nation (developed/underdeveloped) in the same benchmark with total CO2 emisision produced today.
I think it is unfair to count CO2 emissions on yearly basis for the countries. CO2 is being accumulated in the atmosphere since centuries. I would propose to agree on a date to start to calculate the total emission figures. That is for example starting from year 1900 the total emission produced for the countries should be calculated. Than the total emission produced since 2009-1900= 109 years devided by the population should be calculated. Every country/person should have the right to produce that much of emission found by the max figure calculated by above calculation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt would be very unfair to put every nation (developed/underdeveloped) in the same benchmark with total CO2 emisision produced today.
It'll never work. Nobody would let themselves be taken to task for their very lifestyle, least of all the financial and consumer elite.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHopefully the US Senate will defeat the effort to force the US to destroy it's economy - and the rest of the worlds as well and the skepticism of AGW will continue to grow. Maybe then all the nonsense will stop and we can spend our money developing profitable alternatives to fossil fuels rather than being forced to subsidize unprofitable alternatives.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHopefully the US Senate will defeat the effort to force the US to destroy it's economy - and the rest of the worlds as well and the skepticism of AGW will continue to grow. Maybe then all the nonsense will stop and we can spend our money developing profitable alternatives to fossil fuels rather than being forced to subsidize unprofitable alternatives.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe researchers center this article around the need for individuals above the carbon line even in developing countries to take up responsibilities.The reason given in the afore mentioned article is because of the awareness of the impending damage that could be caused by the developing nations in the future. If the matter is about taking responsibility then one should be made aware of the the past mistakes. Nations that were primarily responsible for industrialisation leading to global warming and intensive enironmental damage must own up to all the past damage and accounted for the present add ons and then only should it be thought that the developing nations individuals must assume equal responsibility as those living in any other part of the world.The extremely conveneint interpretation hold no worth because the problem of global warming cannot be solved by placing responsisbilities in an unfair manner .The entire world is very well aware of the exceedingly essential need to cut down carbon emissions but fuelling it through articles that tell individuals above the carbon emissions line in a small developing nation ( where they maybe a part of the highest income of the country, an industrialist... on who the countries future may depend) is highly skewed and will not be successful as moniotring will become far more difficult on an idividual basis rather than a nation basis.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBetter yet would be to tax fossil carbon sources directly. We know fossil carbon fuel providers will pas these cost on directly as higher prices for their products. Then anyone who consumes more will pay more. This will foster conservation, efficiency improvemements, and investment in renewable carbonless energy sources by anyone using fossil fuels. If you really want to see change, refund 100% of this Fossil Carbon Tax back to consuming individuals as a Dividend.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisskbarry,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRefunding the tax back to the consuming individuals will give them no incentive to cut back.
Having said that I am totally opposed to a carbon tax of any kind. I do not believe man is having an appreciable affect on the climate. CO2 is such a small percentage of the atmosphere (less than 1/2 of 1 percent) that, when experiments are done with those concentrations, there is no appreciable temperature increase.
Further proof that this tax is not about reducing consumption is the fact that, as far as greenhouse gasses go, methane and water vapor are far more potent than CO2 but are not covered by these taxes. In fact there are those pushing for hydrogen power - the byproduct of which is water vapor.
This movement is about controlling who gets what and who gets to decide that. It is about global domination by the few. I want no part of it.