A recent proposal from the Chinese State Council’s Development Research Center (DRC) is important since it represents one of the first serious developing country proposals  acknowledging the need for a ‘carbon budget’ approach.

As a ‘first step’ Protocol, the Kyoto Protocol understandably did not set a carbon budget, even for developed countries. Post-2012 agreements will need to provide a framework for achievement – an approach allowing for ‘inter-temporal tradeoffs and smoothing. Timing variations in timing would need to be large to have material environmental impacts’. This can be contrasted with a collection of ‘end-period’ emission goals so far announced by governments that say little about the required emissions path.

The DRC proposal seeks to establish principles both reliable, and acceptable to greater participation (aiming for equal per capita emissions). The DRC, referencing the general principle that no one country should impose ‘external emission harm to any others’, considers this is only possible ‘if and only if each country’s per capita emissions are equal’. This principle was also embraced by Australia’s Garnaut Climate Change Review, which acknowledged that ‘any allocative formula that does not base long-term emissions rights on population has no chance of being accepted by most developing countries.’

However, Garnaut and the DRC differ on  implementation. The DRC approach is that the ‘per capita principle’ should be applied equally to past, as well as future, emissions. It allocates National Emission Accounts (NEAs), which would tally a country’s past emissions, and determine acceptable future emissions according to an agreed global target. The DRC proposal acknowledges that, as a framework, it still needs to be decided ‘how and from what point should the historical emissions of each country be measured?’ However, the implication is clearly to look as far back as ‘the point of the Industrial Revolution’.

Although the DRC proposal applies the ethically sound idea of equal per capita emissions to the past as well as the future, it ignores climate science’s role in advancing knowledge of climate change’s implications. Most greenhouse gas emissions produced in North America and Europe occurred prior to a wide understanding of climate science. Given knowledge development in the last three decades, it can only really be suggested that the world move toward equal-per-capita emissions now that the science is well understood. The DRC’s proposal is akin to a retrospective law allowing penalty for a crime committed before the law prohibiting it existed, an extremely suspect approach with little credence in other areas of law. As Andrew Elek observed, taking account of long-term historical emissions before the UN’s UNFCCC will ‘not be either workable or acceptable’.

Indeed, problems emerge if the DRC model’s sample statistics are substituted for real ones. For instance, using available emissions statistics for the largest emitters, USA and China, since the turn of last century (which is as far back as reliable statistics exist), generates substantially larger differences between the two than the proposal’s example. Under the DRC proposal, taking into consideration historical emissions, the major developed countries would stand to bear almost sole responsibility for future emission reductions. China would be allowed to emit up to four times its entire historical emissions, prior to the stabilisation point, say 2050., whilst developed countries would be required to buy extraordinary amounts of carbon credits from developing countries in order to balance their NEA. Such an arrangement would never be acceptable to developed countries.

However, the National Emissions Account concept is not entirely irretrievable. It could, for instance, be proposed that the account be calculated from 1990, the date the Kyoto Protocol refers to for its emission reduction targets. This would have the benefit that most major emitters began more stringent emissions accounting procedures from 1990 under the UNFCCC process. Developing countries have grounds for dispute over western actions since 1990, when Climate Change  became a concern, and western countries failed to deliver on their part of the mitigation deal.  That’s why China and the G77 are arguing at Copenhagen for emissions reductions of 25per cent-40per cent  by developed countries by 2020. However, it doesn’t excuse China from being part of a global effort for producing a carbon budget over the next decades to avoid dangerous climate change.

The DRC proposal essentially aims to bring fairness to an international agreement. But this does not solely depend on accounting for historical emissions. As an alternative, the Garnaut Review provided a workable model to arrive at equal global per-capita emissions by mid-century, going further than developed countries previously considered feasible. Yet the model is both feasible and achievable with  political will.

Garnaut advocates ‘contraction and convergence’ of emissions entitlements, arguing this would be practical and consistent with developing countries’ concerns.

An approach that gives increasing weight over time to population in determining national allocations both acknowledges high emitters’ positions in starting from the status quo and recognises developing countries’ claims to equitable allocation of rights to the atmosphere…
Under contraction and convergence, each country would start out with emissions entitlements equal to its current emissions levels, and then over time converge to equal per capita entitlements, while the overall global budget contracts to accommodate the emissions reduction objective.

The DRC team objects to use of contraction and convergence  as unfair to developing countries in the context of historical emissions. It claims ‘a country’s high/low per capita real emissions cannot justify its high/low emission entitlements. In the process of convergence, the rights and interests of country B [developing] are really infringed by country A [developed].’

However, the issue of historical responsibility cannot be reduced to equating developed nations’ past emissions to the developing world’s future emissions. In contrast, Garnaut proposed to deal with it through specific assistance directed at developing economies as an International Low-Emissions Technology Commitment, with an International Adaptation Assistance Commitment funded by developed countries.

While it looks like Copenhagen may struggle to produce a meaningful agreement, it would be positive if China were to move closer to accepting an emissions target as part of a global carbon budget. To encourage major developing country emitters, the Garnaut Review suggested non-binding commitments involving emissions trajectories. They would be provided incentives to meet targets, but would not risk punishment should they miss. This would at least indicate how close the international community was to achieving a shared goal.

The DRC proposal attempts to address two key issues leading to developing economies’ reluctance: unequal per capita emissions and historical responsibility. In that sense, the proposal represents an impressive attempt to apply a consistent principle, and a market solution, to the climate change problem. However, the Garnaut Review demonstrated there are far more practicable ways to resolve these issues, and it deserves more attention than it has been getting.

Unfortunately the ‘Danish text’ leaked to The Guardian that caused a stir in the first week of discussions at Copenhagen, indicates developed countries do not see equal per-capita emissions as a realistic goal. The text was not official, and it may be hoped that equal per-capita emissions entitlements can still provide the key to bridging the developed/developing divide.