Entries by Bernd Sommer

At the G8 summit in L’Aquila in July 2009 the heads of government, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Obama foremost, but also the leadership of China and India, adopted the “two-degree target” as their own. This means that they intend to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius above the level of 1880, as the world’s leading climate scientists have long recommended. If the “Declaration of the Leaders of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate” is more than lip service, then it will have radical consequences. The latest special report by the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) shows that worldwide carbon emissions must be limited to no more than approx. 750 gigatons of CO2 by 2050. At the current rate of emissions, this budget will be exhausted in 20 years; should emissions grow further, the world would become “carbon insolvent” even sooner. The reduction of CO2 emissions and other greenhouse gases must begin as quickly as possible.

The negotiations extending from the Kyoto Protocol to Copenhagen in 2009 do not produce such a radical change. Instead of negotiating individual emissions limits between 192 states, the WBGU suggests a budgetary formula. Its core idea: all states should be given a national per capita emissions budget that combines historical responsibility, the current productivity of the state in question and global provisions for the survival of humanity. According to this approach, three climate worlds may be identified: Group 1 includes roughly 60 states with current annual CO2 emissions of more than 5.4 tons per capita: besides the industrial nations of the OECD, a group of Arab states, Iran, Venezuela and South Africa. How small the budgets for countries of group 1 are may be illustrated by the example of the USA and Australia (with per capita emissions of 19 tons of CO2 per year). For both, the budget will not last for another 6 years, and even with linear reductions starting in 2010 they would theoretically have to achieve zero emissions within 11 years. And the budgets allocated to Germany until 2050 (11 t CO2 per capita/year) and the EU (9 t CO2) will last only ten to twelve years without reductions. Group 2 includes around 30 states, all currently emitting more than 2.7 t CO2 per capita. By far the biggest emitter in this group is China, whose budget will only last for another 24 years. Threshold states like Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Thailand are in similar circumstances. Contrary to what is suggested by the Copenhagen talks, this group also can no longer carry on “business as usual” and must significantly intensify “green business”. Group 3 includes all other states with emissions under 2.7 t CO2 per capita, which currently contribute only twelve percent of global emissions and thus of the emissions budget. These countries, which will also be the main sufferers from the consequences of dangerous climate change, have overall considerable margin for higher emissions. At the top of this group are countries like Brazil, Egypt and Peru, whose budget, given constant emissions, will last for another 42, 56 or 59 years, respectively. They must therefore begin to uncouple greenhouse gas emissions from planned economic growth in order to stay within budget. At the bottom of the group are 45 countries mainly in sub-Saharan Africa that currently emit less than 0.5 t CO2 per capita. To cut the Gordian knot of climate talks, the agreement would have to be: technology and financial transfers for budget surpluses. This offsetting must be coupled with concrete climate protection planning, so that what is sold by low-emissions states is not merely “hot air”, that is, enormous financial transfers being staged without any climate protection effects. Rightly understood, emissions trading leads to strategic climate partnerships between countries with higher and those with lower emissions, so that developing countries can make the jump to a sustainable, low-carbon economy. This deal makes climate protection immediately attractive for all nations, even if their per capita emissions are still low at present. The determining factor for negotiations is thus the size and structure of the financial transfer.

Based on a special report of the WBGU “Solving the Climate Dilemma: The Budget Approach” (www.wbgu.de), published September 2009.

The upcoming international climate negotiations in Copenhagen are already subject to heated discussions. Meanwhile, public interest increasingly shifts away from the international treaty that aims at preventing dangerous climate change, which already exists: the Kyoto Protocol. This is short-sighted. Not only does the commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol only expire in 2012; more importantly, an in-depth analysis of the shortcomings of the existing treaty is a necessary prerequisite for a successful climate agreement in Copenhagen.

During the last years, it has become a popular exercise of political commentators to criticise the US for their long lasting resistance against international efforts to combat dangerous climate change. For good reason! The US accounts for 44 per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions from all OECD countries. However, to name solely the US’s missing willingness to mitigate CO2 emissions, is only half of the story. Currently, 183 states have ratified the Kyoto Protocol and many countries, such as Germany, are most likely to reach their assigned targets. But at the same time, global emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are increasingly rising: The rate of growth of CO2 emissions between 2000 and 2007 was four times that of the previous decade. How could this happen? Where lie the weaknesses of the current agreement and its implementation?

Although a fundamental criticism of the Kyoto agreement (as put forward by
Prins and Rayner 2007) is not very useful, in the light of growing emissions it should be obvious that the Kyoto Protocol entails some faulty terms and is based on some severe misassumptions. A closer look at the Protocol makes clear, why the balance sheet of most industrialized nations – even those of “climate role models” such as Germany, Denmark or Norway – is not almost as good as they look at the first sight. Established reduction targets alone do not determinate if emissions decline or rise. Terms that appear as questions of detail, in effect open loopholes for the annex I nations. This can lead to the paradox situation, where nominally GHG emissions of annex I parties decline, while in reality emissions are still growing. For instance, CO2 emissions und CO2 reductions that are related to the sector of land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) can be offset with assigned objectives of reduction, although this sector was not listed among the emissions of reference in 1990.

Furthermore, credits that derive from the REDD mechanism (REDD stands for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) also count as reductions of the industrialized countries. Finally, the so-called clean development mechanism (CDM), which allows annex I parties to invest in projects that reduce emissions in developing countries as an alternative to more expensive emission reductions in their own countries, functions as a offset instrument. Including such loopholes into the Kyoto Protocol did not only undermine the agreed reduction quotas; it also made the whole Kyoto process highly intransparent, so that it can hardly be understood by non-experts. Not only concerning its democratic legitimation, this procedure is highly problematic: Most experts agree that efforts to combat dangerous climate change can only be successful if they are not organised in a “top down” manner, but also work “bottom up”, i.e. that “the people” start to see themselves as responsible for global warming as well as for efforts of mitigation. This can only be successful if everyone is fully aware of the commitments required; if people just learn about mitigation of global warming in highly technical termini and fuzzy arrangements negotiated by their governments it is bound to fail.
But there are even more problems involved in the Kyoto agreement: While the protocol prescribes binding emission targets for the annex I countries, fast advancing development countries such as China, Brazil and India are totally left out from any obligations. Surely, most experts did not foresee the real dynamics of economic growth that was taking place in China and India during the last ten years. However, excluding these countries from any binding commitments brought us into a situation, where the “polluter pays principle” threatens to become inverted into a “pay the polluter principle”: Due to the costs related to higher environmental standards, productions sites of heavy industries have been “shipped overseas” to areas with looser emission norms (such as China). As a result, recent studies show that carbon efficiency in certain business sectors, such as steel and paper production, slowed down during the last years
(see Prins, Stehr et al. 2009).

What does all this mean for Copenhagen? First of all, all emission targets have to be assigned as domestic, i.e. possibilities for extensive offsetting have to be reduced drastically. Secondly, and connected to this, emission targets for individual countries have to be as transparent as possible, so that the real requirements and demands in order to prevent dangerous climate change become comprehensible for everybody. Last but not least, there have to be binding commitments for the fast growing development countries as well. This does not mean that OECD and development countries should
be simply lumped together from now on. However, no successful international climate agreement can be adopted in Copenhagen that does not demand also from rapidly advancing countries, such as China, India or Brazil, strategies to decarbonise their economies.