ALLOCATING FUTURE TARGET EMISSIONS
Introduction
Diminishing and allocating the emissions of carbon dioxide is one of the challenges of the future. The ways in which this could be accomplished have to consider several ethical aspects of the world regions[1], such as right to development, past responsibility, and capabilities. In this paper, the “Equal per capita emissions” and the “Polluter pays” scenarios are considered as two different ways of stabilizing the climate at the 2° threshold (Bear et al. 2008).The only way to achieve this it to reduce the global carbon emissions by 3% per year, starting in 2015. This analysis examines a timeframe between 1980 and 2050.
First, I considered the total carbon emissions divided per region and the emissions per capita. Then I calculated the emissions intensity. Secondly, the Business As Usual (BAU) scenario estimates the future emissions without any policy intervention. Then a comparison is made between the two future policies considered, namely the Equal per capita emissions and the Polluter pays.
Analysis of the last 35 years of emissions
The first aspect while considering the world emissions (Figure 1) is to analyze all the available data. The first graph shows that overall, all world regions are increasing their total carbon emissions. In the past the most developed regions were the ones with the highest emissions (US, EU). Most recently, China and Other Annex 1 have surpassed the previous ones, with a great pace. Annex 1 regions’ total carbon emissions from 2000 to 2008 were flat and then they are decreasing. LDC are increasing CO2 emissions, but it’s way marginal than other regions, so that is difficult to see the real impact.
The second aspect considered is the CO2 emissions per capita. The figure 2 shows that Annex 1 are way more impacting than Non-Annex 1 both historically and recently: historically from 10 to 200 times more impacting, recently from 2 to 8 times. All Annex 1 reduced the emissions per capita in the last years, despite increasing their GDP. On the other hand, all Non-Annex 1 has increased their impact per capita as well as GDP.
Thirdly, I briefly analyzed the GDP per capita. As figure 3.1 shows, all regions increased their GDP per capita with different paces. The gap between Annex 1 (excluded Russia) and Non-Annex 1 plus Russia is so big that the growth is not clearly visible for the latter. That is way I build the same plot excluding the developed countries (Figure 3.2), and I did the same for emission intensity plots (Figure 4.1 and 4.2)
Here, we can see that Russia GDP per capita suffered a depression after URSS collapsed, but lately it increased again at a good pace. China has increased the GDP per capita and recently also accelerated this performance. Other regions’ increase is slower but constant.
Emission intensity is an interesting index because it shows how many kilograms of CO2 are emitted for 1 USD of GDP per each region. Practically speaking it shows the efficiency (in terms of carbon emissions) of each region to produce their GDP. Figure 4.1 shows that Russia, China and India are by far the less efficient, followed by other Non-Annex 1. It is clear the correlation between development and efficiency.
In particular, figure 4.2 shows how all Annex 1 regions, excluded Russia Federation, are decreasing their emission intensity and the only one which is worsening is LDC. It is good to notice that EU is the less impacting.
BAU scenario
To estimate future emissions by regions, the correlation with GDP is clear: out of 9 zones, 7 are found to be correlated above 0.77, and of these, 5 above 0.96 (exception Europe with slightly negative correlation). Not having the estimates of future GDP, and having to apply one between TREND and GROWTH, I think the TREND function is the most appropriate: it tends not to exaggerate in the long run the growth of emissions and follows more the concrete capabilities of each zone to increase its GDP. At the same time, this estimation is not accurate since the projection is calculated on a too large timeframe. E.g., China has had an important increase between 2002 and 2012, but in the last three years, it is clearly visible a contraction on the growth in total emissions. So, it is easy to say the TREND estimation bases its projection on a partial/incorrect pool of information, because it would be more realistic to give more importance to the last years to estimate. On the other hand, the GROWTH would have exaggerated the lack of information’s effects even more.
TOTAL CARBON EMISSIONS (BAU)
Future policy scenarios
In this section, two policies are analyzed: the Equal per capita emissions (Figure 6.1, 6.2) and the Polluter pays(Figure 7.1, 7.2). The first one assumes that all regions have to contribute to lowering the emissions, without considering the responsibility for the climate change problem. All countries have to emit the same amount of CO2 per capita. Since is impossible to change the impact in only one year, it is allowed to target the same emission in a given period of time (in this case is 2030). The other policy assumes that the one that has emitted the most in the past should bear the costs of reducing it in the future.
Figure 6.1 shows that all regions require to reduce the emissions in absolute terms. The only exception are less developed regions (LDC, India), which are going to overtake the total carbon emissions of the Annex 1 in 2030. From figure 6.2, it is clear that these two regions are the ones that has emitted less in the past per capita. This is due to their right to development: they can emit more in order to reach the development threshold[2] (Bear et al. 2008). Figure 6.2 analyze the per capita emissions of this policy: a reduction in emissions is demanded from the regions that emit the most per person, and the others (those that emitted the least per person) are given a chance to pollute more in the short/medium term. Moving the deadline to converge to the same emissions per capita, the policy makers can require more or less effort from all regions: more effort is requested from the 4 most advanced regions, which have the opportunity to be more efficient (e.g. access to better technologies or infrastructures). Both figures (6.1 and 6.2) in the long run, show that the same effort from an efficiency standpoint is required by all regions, especially in figure 6.2.
This policy has the advantage to give the right time to all regions to align to the same starting point. Also, it gives the same right to emit to all people in the world, regardless the region. The fight against climate change should be globally accepted and this policy will be aligned with the UNFCC[3]. On the other hand, it does not take into account the emissions history and the almost no responsibility for the climate problem that the LDC have.
Considering now the Polluter pays scenario, figure 7.2 shows that more effort is required from regions that currently emit more, but less polluting regions are not given a chance to develop and thus pollute more in the short to medium term. Every region from 2015 must reduce emissions in absolute terms, some more and some less, and therefore per capita emissions as well (assuming the population does not reduce). This forces countries that currently have low development (and therefore emissions) to keep them at very low levels. Which is difficult to do due to lack of capabilities (know-how, technologies, policies, infrastructures,…)
In the long run, a great effort in keeping the emissions low is required from the countries that have emitted the most. Instead, those that historically have not polluted so much (they just recently grew in terms of GDP and emissions, like China) will be rewarded. One solution to this problem is the year-by-year recalculation of the liability in a specific timeframe: liability 0, timeframe 1990–2015; liability 1, timeframe 1991–2016 and so on. This would lead to a continuous updating of the impact: meaning that, in a first moment US are the most responsible, but in few years their impact would be resized; China will take the lead. This approach to Polluter Pays principle leads readjustment to liability as a function of time, and thus we would notice a greater effect in the long run (even beyond 2050) as it is shown in Figure 7.3 and 7.4. The comparison between Figure 7.1 and 7.3 shows how China is impacted the same in both approaches in the first place, but in the long run the amount of total CO2 emissions will be less in the recalculation approach (2050: 5161 VS 3791 million Tons CO2). At the same time, this would give the possibility for US to emit more since they have already paid for their past emission in the first period (2050: 516 VS 1500 million Tons CO2). The comparison between Figure 7.2 and 7.4 shows the emissions per capita: with the first approach it is requested all regions to go below 1.6, except from China (3.66 Tons, more than double); with the second, all countries can achieve the goal at a slower pace in terms of effort. Nevertheless, it would maintain the problem of constraining the lowest emitting countries that will not be able to increase their impact at all.
Comparison of different scenarios
In the last step, I analyze the differences between the BAU scenario and the two policies. In table number 2 and 3 the total carbon emissions are calculated in both scenarios, divided in 3 time period. Then in figure 9 the 3 possible future scenarios are compared, based on the projections (2016–2050). The comparison shows how emissions would change accordingly to the adopted policies. The BAU scenario is the worst one, in which of course the emission will continue to rise. What it is interesting is that with the Equal per capita emission scenario, US will have to reduce the emissions even more than with the Polluter Pays scenario. This means that even if they actually should bear the burden of the past responsibility, they will be more penalized with the first policy. At the same time, Equal per capita emissions will allow LDC countries to emit more and, consequently, to achieve development. With the Polluter Pays scenario, China would be allowed to emit more than 50% compared to the Equal per capita emissions. Regions at the extremes of emissions (EU, China, LDC) are those most impacted by the decision of the policy. The other regions are less impacted in absolute terms by the decision of the policy (EU, Russia, other annex 1 and Non-annex 1). In absolute terms, Polluter Pays requires more effort than Equal per capita emissions to regions such as India, Non-annex 1, LDC and EU. This is clearly counter-intuitive since Polluter pays should require more effort to US, China and Russia Federation which historically has polluted the most. With this consideration, I would choose Equal per capita emissions as policy. With this policy we are asking most developed countries, which empirically emits more per capita, to develop technologies and infrastructure, and adopt policies which lead to a rapid reduction of their emissions per capita. At the same time, we are giving the possibility for less developed countries, which empirically emits less per capita, to develop their economies and industries and, only in a second moment, to focus on a reduction of the per capita emission. Also, it is easier to justify a policy which lays its foundation from the concept of “all human beings have the same rights and duties”. From a wider perspective, with Polluter pays, it is also difficult to ask countries like US to reduce their emission to a point in which a US citizen is emitting a third of what a Chinese citizen is emitting, while China is not putting effort in reducing its impact worldwide.
Total Carbon Emissions (Equal per capita emission)
Total Carbon Emissions (Polluter pays)
References
Baer P., Athanasiou T., Kartha S., Kemp-Benedict E., The Greenhouse Development Rights Framework. The right to development in a climate-constrained, 2008 (2., rev.ed.). Berlin: Heinrich Böll Foundation. Publication Series on Ecology, vol. 1. ISBN 9783927760714.
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 1992 https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/convention_text_with_annexes_english_for_posting.pdf
