By Nikhat Jamal Qaiyum

A. Common but Differentiated Responsibilities Based on Historical Responsibility

In June 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) adopted the Rio Declaration. One of the most controversial provisions of the Declaration proved to be the developed countries’ responsibility for existing environmental degradation and its remediationi, in view of the pressures their societies place on the global environmentii and of the technologies and financial resources they command.iii

“The economic model of the developed world must be changed since the development aspirations of the South mirror Northern lifestyles and economic achievements. These Northern lifestyles can be characterized by consumption rates of energy, water, minerals and bio-mass that are roughly ten times higher than those in developing countries. If developing countries were successful in emulating these Northern lifestyles, the worldwide destruction of resources would be dramatically accelerated, leading rapidly to global ecological collapse. Hence it is urgent from an ecological standpoint to make the Northern model sustainable.”iv 

The tragedy of the atmospheric common has been the lack of rights to the ecological space. As a result, countries have borrowed or drawn heavily and without control. They have emitted greenhouse gases (GHGs) far in excess of what the Earth can withstand. This was because they could emit without limits or quotas and were “free riding” on this natural capital. This “tragedy of the commons” has resulted in the “natural debt” of the North.

At Rio, developing countries were unanimous in putting forward the “historical” responsibility of the industrialised countries for exacerbating the greenhouse effect and refused to envisage any specific commitment to emissions reductions of their own. Nevertheless, based on the principle of “common but differentiated responsibility,”v they agreed to participate in the negotiation process on condition that their development priorities were recognized and they received guarantees of financial and technological aid to correspond to specific commitments.  In the absence of financial support, they would be bound only by “moral” commitments.

The Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) adopted by UNCED reflected, in its Preamble itself, the attribution of responsibilities for the present and historical accumulations of GHGs where it belonged - on the industrialized countries of the North.vi 

The FCCC differentiates between various categories of States - distinguishing three - and formulates different responsibilities for each of them.vii   The first category consist of 24 countries belonging to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the European Commission (EC) and countries that are undergoing the process of transition to a market economy, i.e. a number of Central and Eastern European States and parts of the former USSR. Each of these countries, listed in Annex-I, is committed to limiting its anthropogenic emissions of GHGs and enhancing its sinks and reservoirs.  They have the duty to report on policies and measures, including detailed information, on projected emissions, with the aim of returning ‘individually or jointly’ to their 1990 emission levels (Articles 4(2)(b), 12(2) and 12(5)). Each of these Parties must coordinate, as appropriate with other such Parties, relevant economic and administrative instruments to achieve the objective of the Convention, and periodically review its own policies and practices (Article 4(2)(a)). Article 4(6) allows Annex-I countries undergoing the process of transition to market economy a certain degree of flexibility in meeting their commitments under the FCCC.

The second category consists of the ‘developed country parties’ only.  They are listed in Annex-II, comprising all 24 OECD Member States and the EC.  Under Article 3(1) the ‘developed country Parties are expected to take the lead in combating climate change.  It is recognized that the return by the year 2000 to earlier emission levels will contribute to achieving the objective of the Convention.

Lastly, there is the category of non-Annex countries, which can be equated with the developing countries.viii  Article 4(7) provides that the extent to which developing countries will effectively implement their commitments under the Convention will depend on the provision of financial resources and technology by developed country Parties.ix  Under Article 12(5) it is provided that these countries should report within three years of the entry into force of the Convention (for Annex-I countries this is within six months) or within three years after the developed countries have made financial resources available in accordance with Article 4(3).

Thus, while the FCCC fell short of removing ambiguities concerning the emission commitments of developed countries,x it avoided shifting the burden to the developing countries.  The Convention took into account that “economic and social development and poverty eradication are the first and overriding priorities of the developing country Parties.”xi 

In effect, developed countries admitted the obvious: that emissions from developing countries must and will increase and that reductions in the rich countries must offset this inevitable increase in emissions by the poor.xii 

B. Equity - Inter and Intragenerational - as Basis for Sustainable Development

The concept of ‘differentiated responsibilities’ raises fundamental questions about international justice, because addressing them requires confronting the unequal distribution of power, wealth and resource endowments between countries, between present and future generations, and within countries.xiii  Given the vast differences in wealth and power, coupled with the history of Southern colonialism by Northern countries, the claim that developed countries should adjust their consumption patterns and trading policies and should pay their ‘ecological debt’ to developing countries, is justified as part of the “quest for equity.” This “would, of necessity, make allowances for past policies of exploitation.”xiv  Global cooperation should strive to achieve “a just world order, an order which is based on and recognizes equity as the dominant principle governing relations between States.”

Fundamental issues of equity between States were at the heart of the climate negotiations.xv 

The fact that issues of equity were placed at the head of the FCCC and receive repeated emphasis in the text, reflects the nature of the issues and the political realities behind it.  The principles laid out in Article 3 of the Convention emphasize the need to protect the global environment and to maintain equity in international economic relationships.  Thus, parties to the Convention should “protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind, on the basis of equity,” giving full consideration to “the specific needs of developing country Parties,” promoting “...sustainable economic growth and development in all Parties, particularly developing country Parties.”

“The FCCC currently incorporates only a weak notion of equity...in line with the principle of  “common but differentiated responsibilities.”xvi  The final text of the FCCC leaves a substantial amount of the core business of the negotiations unfinished. Only by addressing the equity questions in ways, which led to a “clear-cut and unambiguous time bound programme for stabilization and reduction of GHGs originating from the developed countries,”xvii  will the Climate Convention become “an effective instrument for combating climate change.”

So far we have focused on the international dimension of equity, i.e. fairness between countries.  The text of Article 3 of the FCCC, cited earlier in this section, indicates another dimension of equity: fairness between generations.

Without doubt, global climate change involves deep inter-temporal and intergenerational issues to a unique degree.  If present trends in human generated GHG emissions continue undisturbed, then it is remote generations from the present that will be progressively damaged, and the more distant, the greater the damage.xviii 

In part, at least, the issue of respecting obligations of the living to the welfare of progeny several generations removed involves a choice between utility and equity. The underlying intent of any commitment to equity is to constrain “a natural inclination to take advantage of our temporary control over the earth’s resources.”xix 

The Fiduciary Trust Framework, explained most thoroughly by Edith Brown Weiss in her path-breaking Planetary Trust approach,xx provides the most promising set of normative principles for addressing the equity issues related to climate change.

Weiss states in her work In Fairness to Future Generations: “The theory of intergenerational equity proposed argues that we, the human species, hold the natural environment of our planet in common with all members of our species - past generations, the present generation, and future generations.  As members of the present generation we hold the earth in trust for future generations.  At the same time, we are beneficiaries entitled to use and benefit from it...we can use it on a sustainable basis or we can degrade environmental quality and deplete the natural resource base.”

“All generations are inherently linked to other generations in using the common patrimony of earth.”xxi  This normative prescription for “partnership among all generations” is given a decisive turn to symmetry by using Rawls mental game of stochastically placing each potential participant generation in a distributional process in an unpredictable spot in the temporal sequence of generations.xxii  Each “...generation would want to inherit the earth in at least as good condition as it has been in for any previous generation and to have as good access to it as previous generations have had.  This requires each generation to pass the planet on in no worse condition than in which it received it and to provide equitable access to its resources and benefits.” “Each generation is both a trustee for the planet with obligations to care for it and a beneficiary with rights to use it.”xxiii 

“It is not enough, however, to apply a theory of intergenerational equity only among generations.  It also carries an intergenerational dimension” Weiss observes that intergenerational and intragenerational equity is not considered in conflict, but “are consistent and in fact must go together.”xxiv  “By itself, intergenerational equity does not indicate how the burdens and fruits are to be borne by members of the present generation.  For this, intergenerational equity must extend to the intragenerational context.”xxv  (The discussion of equity thus comes full circle).

In what is very relevant to the climate change issue, she notes, “Poverty-stricken communities, which by definition have unequal access to resources, are forced to over-exploit the resources they do have so as to satisfy their own basic needs.  As an ecosystem begins to deteriorate, the poor communities suffer most, because they cannot afford to take the measures necessary to control or adapt to the degradation, or to move to pristine areas.”  “Thus, to implement intergenerational equity, countries need to help poor communities to use the natural environments on a sustainable basis, to assist them in gaining equitable access to the economic benefits from our planet.” “As beneficiaries of the planetary legacy, all members of the present generation are entitled to equitable access to and use of the legacy.”xxvi 

Weiss has proposed three basic principles of intergenerational equity “conservation of options”, “conservation of quality” and “conservation of access.” The problem of equitable access is an intergenerational problem. “Although all members have an equitable right of access to and use of these resources, many are effectively unable to realize this because of the great economic disparities in the world community. Those who now receive the benefits from exploiting the planetary resources have more to pass on to future generations...which perpetuates the inequality.”xxvii 

According to Weiss, these “principles of intergenerational equity form the basis of a set of intergenerational obligations” or “planetary obligations” which derive from each generation’s position as part of the “inter-temporal entity of human society.”xxviii  This framework of rights and duties can appropriately be viewed as implementing the poignant call of the World Commission on Environment and Development for “sustainable development.” The Commission defines this as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”xxix 

It is not possible given the constraints of this paper to explore the Fiduciary Trust Framework in detail. The purpose is only to highlight the normative intent of such an equity framework in as much as it strengthens the case for equity in the climate context. As it is, there is good reason to state that the debate about responsibility to future generations has found its way into international politics. After being repeated in many different contexts, intergenerational responsibility was reaffirmed at UNCED as a central component of the shift to Sustainable Development.  Principle 3 of the Rio Declaration confirms that: “The right to development must be fulfilled so as to equitably meet development and environmental needs of present and future generations.”

C. Equity in Allocation of Rights to the Atmosphere

The likelihood that climate change could exacerbate international inequalities poses several thorny international distributional issues. The international distributional aspects of climate change can be grouped into two main areas: First, those associated with the impacts of climate change  - who will be affected, how will these impacts, aspects be evaluated, and what are the nature and implications of transboundary responsibilities for coping with these impacts? Second, are the aspects associated with limiting future climatic change - whose activities should be altered to limit emissions of GHGs and who should pay for such restraint?xxx 

Henry Shue, one of the few professional philosophers to have written on the climate issue, notes a third issue: fairness of bargaining on climate change, given background inequalities.xxxi  The broader issue of concern here is “justice.” By justice is meant “distributions that are ‘appropriate’ and ‘fitting’ given the various claims of the parties.” The intuitive sense of justice is what the Romans called “natural law” or equity.xxxii 

Equity, however, has multiple notions.xxxiii  A starting point may be the notion of equality (parity); parties that are equal in all normatively relevant respects should share the same burdens equally. Since most of the parties are not equal in all relevant respects, the criteria for a differentiated approach has been included in the FCCC.xxxiv 

Equity, or fairness, has to be seen against the background of both differences among countries in present income levels and the development and industrialization imperative. It also requires explicit recognition of the historical dynamics of world industrialization, which has produced dangerous levels of carbon emissions for the world as a whole while providing the material benefits of industrialization to only a part of the world’s population.

The following typology and indices for allocating GHG emission reductions can be submitted. It uses two sets of questions to separate the negotiating criteria, considering the goals of equity and efficiency. The categorization is as follows:

•          To determine the best projects, these   questions must be addressed:

–          What are the goals? (Globally) (And who should do what?)

–          What are the best opportunities? (Who can do what?)

•          To determine who will pay, these questions must be addressed:

–          Where are the resources available? (Who can pay?)

–          Who has the responsibility for the problem? (Who should pay?)xxxv 

It is obvious that both the responsibility and the capacity criteria imply that the costs of action to prevent climate change will have to be shared unequally, with the industrialized countries taking the lead in committing resources and reductions. Further, the desert criterion implies that abatement measures should not obstruct economic and social progress in developing countries.

D. Negotiating the Framework  for Action after Rio

The First Conference of the Parties (CoP-1) to the FCCC was held in Berlin in 1995. In order to strengthen their commitments, delegates sought the negotiation of a protocol, with the goal of setting for developed countries “quantified limitation and reduction objectives within specified time frames, such as 2005, 2010, and 2020.” It was asserted that the process should “not introduce any new commitments for Parties not included in Annex-I.”xxxvi  The Berlin meeting also launched the Ad Hoc Group on the Berlin Mandate (AGBM) process. Parties agreed to start negotiations on a “protocol or another legal instrument with a view of adopting the results” at CoP-3 in 1997.

CoP-3 met in Kyoto in the December of 1997 and adopted the Kyoto Protocol to the Climate Convention. The Protocol has set specific targets for each industrialised country as well as the industrialised countries as a whole to cut average annual carbon emissions. However, what resulted in Kyoto was only an inadequate commitment to a reduction average of 5.2 percent by the year 2010 for industrialised countries.xxxvii 

Japan finally agreed to reduce emissions to 6 per cent below 1990 levels, the United States (US) agreed to 7 per cent, and the European Union (EU) agreed on an 8 per cent reduction by 2008-10.xxxviii 

Under the Kyoto Protocol framework, developing countries are merely being asked to undertake measures that would help them to reduce their future carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions with the financial help of industrialised countries so that the credit for these emission reductions can go to the latter. In other words, the mechanism for emissions reductions in the South proposed in Kyoto will only help the North to meet its emission reduction targets at a cheaper cost.

The way in which the proposed mechanisms have been conceived do not at all make them instruments that help the North and South to work together to meet the objectives of the Convention. Moreover, they open up opportunities for geopolitics to play an important role. In other words, non-environmental issues can easily enter the arena of environmental cooperation.xxxix 

Secondly, the Kyoto proposals mean that developing countries will continue to go ahead on a carbon-intensive path and will be asked to make extremely costly adjustments in their energy paths at a much later stage, when they have already made enormous industrial and energy investments. It is amazing that industrialised countries, and the US in particular, did not propose a better framework for North-South cooperation in Kyoto despite all the song and dance about how developing countries will be the biggest emitters of GHGs in the future.xl 

The Kyoto Protocol includes three specific mechanisms (also “flexibility mechanisms”) Joint Implementation (JI) (Article 6), Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)  (Article 12), and Emissions Trading (Article 17) with the explicit aim of “assisting” the industrialised countries to meet their targets.

These three flexibility mechanisms or  “flexmex” have, since Kyoto, become the centre of all climate-related negotiations. The Protocol allows for JI and emissions trading programmes only between industrialised countries. CDM, meanwhile, is a form of JI between industrialised and developing countries.

E. Per Capita Entitlements

International agreements to limit climate change will be easier to negotiate if they are perceived to be equitable. Hence, one very commonly suggested rule is to allocate the total number of permits amongst countries on a per capita basis. There is precedent for this approach in the 1987 Montreal Protocol to the 1985 Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer which allocated chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) emission quotas equally per capita among the industrialised countries, using current population as the basis of the distribution.c 

In fact, it was explicitly proposed in an early draft of the FCCC, a Revised Version of which was agreed at the Rio Earth Summit. According to this draft, emissions were to converge to a common per capita level over the course of the years.ci 

Michael Grubb explains this rule as follows: “The moral principle is simple, namely that ...since the natural climate is part of the common heritage of mankind, entitlements to alter that heritage should be allocated equally to every member of the human community...Every human being has an equal right to use the atmospheric resource.”cii  The corollary to this principle is that countries whose per capita emissions are above the world average should compensate those countries whose emissions are below average for their disproportionate use of the atmospheric commons. “The moral principle is simple...The economic principle follows directly...The practical effect is obvious: it would require the industrialised world, with high per capita energy consumption, to assist the developing world with efficient technology and technical services.”ciii  This allocation criteria is derived from the egalitarian ethic, which emanates from basic percepts of equality as embodied in the constitutions of many countries. Interestingly, this is a purely individualistic criterion that transcends national entities, so it applies to the international setting unchanged.  With minor variations, this takes two general forms.cv 

The egalitarian concept of fairness, based on equal contemporary entitlements, would suggest that emission abatement should be undertaken in proportion to population and that entitlements should be allocated also in proportion to population.cvi  This route is proposed by Geoff Bertram, Joshua M. Epstein and Raj Gupta, Anil Agarwal and Sunita Narain, among others.cvii  This allocation criteria is strongly supported by developing countries, which have low per capita emissions and would thus receive an excess of permits, but has been vigorously opposed by a number of industrialised countries. Potentially large resource transfers to the developing world would result, and for this reason, most political analysts in the North consider per capita allocations to be infeasible.cviii

Objections have also been raised on grounds of concern that such allocation might 'reward’ population and population growth, reducing incentives for population control. Proponents of the approach however tend to argue that any such effect is negligible compared to other factors influencing population. To avoid any inducement to population growth, nevertheless, Grubb suggests that the population measure should be restricted to population above a certain age - an allocation based on adult population.cix  Depending on the definition of 'adult’, it would provide a 15-21 year delay between births and receiving the allotment.cx  Incidentally, since the fast-growing population of developing countries tends also to have a larger non-adult share, this rule redresses some of the advantage given to those countries by the population rule.cxi  An alternative incentive for population stabilization could be built into the scheme by pegging the allotment to the entire population in recent year and not increase future emissions. This 'lagged’ allocation has been suggested by Grubb et al., together with a range of other possibilities, including apportionment to a fixed historical date, or the inclusion of an explicit term related inversely to population growth rate.cxii  To partially account for the lag in stabilizing population, after a reference year has been fixed, it could be agreed to allow a redistribution of permits in 10-15 years, based on some weighting of the then-current and initial population distributions.cxiii 

At unaltered 1988 emission and population levels, the transfers would amount to about 0.42 percent of Gross National Product (GNP) in the US and twice this for the erstwhile Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, with GNP estimated at conventional exchange rates. The average transfers from the rest of the OECD countries would be around 0.16 percent of GNP. It would require more from the US than its current Official Development Assistance (ODA) levels, and about a third of the current ODA from the rest of the OECD countries. The giant nations of India and China would get the lion’s share. Some have argued that such a transfer is warranted anyway, and will be a good way of enforcing the transfer of resources from the North to the South.cxiv 

Both the developed and developing world face penalties and advantages in an allocation scheme based on population during a fixed reference year: the developed countries have high per capita emissions and a lag occurs in the transition to best available technology to reduce emissions, but most have stable or very slowly growing populations, while developing countries have high population growth rates and will experience a lag in reducing population growth, but have significant opportunities for technological ‘leapfrogging’ as they undergo development. Since both groups of countries would experience both advantages and disadvantages, and both will be seen to be conceding something, acceptance of this allocation will be easier than if one group only has to make concessions. Moreover, long-term limitation of GHG emissions requires different policy responses in developed and developing countries: in the case of developed countries, per capita emissions must be reduced, while in the case of developing countries, it is more important to stabilize population than to limit the near-term increase in per capita emissions. The regime proposed here will provide strong incentives for this asymmetric response.cxv  

(An exception to the above generalization occurs in the case of Canada, the US, and Australia, which have high per capita emissions and relatively high population growth rates. They, like the developing countries, will have to grapple with population policy as part of their response to the need to limit GHG emissions.)

In another version of the same principle, I. Fujii, Prodipto Ghosh, and Aubrey Meyer propose the egalitarian concept of allocations based on historical per capita entitlements: everyone should have an equal right to identical emissions regardless of nation and generation.cxvi 

Fujii and Meyer have developed detailed systems of accounts involving intergenerational transfer of the responsibility for past excess per capita emissions by the industrialised countries. Fujii’s formulation, in effect, would require regions, which historically have been the principal contributors to increased atmospheric concentrations of GHGs to compensate regions whose historical GHG emissions have been lower.cxvii 

Ghosh provides an analytical derivation of the Fujii doctrine as follows:

•          Equality of opportunity requires that inequalities (in wealth or welfare) arising from differential levels of GHG emissions do not carry over across generations. Specifically, at a minimum this principle would seem to require that the access to GHG emissions could not be hereditary. This principle furnishes the basis for the assertion that societies with higher historical per capita emissions should compensate societies with lower past per capita emissions. Ensuring equality of opportunity is a central concern of the Welfare State, and is sought to be realized in all but avowed legally minimalist States.  Little support may be found in international public documents or current instruments for abrogating this principle.cxviii 

M. dens Elzen et al. apply the idea with an energy model to a total carbon budget defined over 1800-2100.cxix 

Barry Solomon and Dilip R. Ahuja also propose allocations based on 'national historical per capita emissions’, based on the 'natural debt’ concept.cxx 

All these studies indicate that the industrialised countries have 'overused’ the atmosphere in the past, and on most such approaches have built up a large 'debt’; the developing countries are, however, in credit.cxxi 

 F. Equitable Entitlements and Convergence

Global negotiations have thrown up emissions trading as the most economically effective strategy for emissions reduction, and equal per capita entitlements and convergence as the key components for equity and solidarity. These principles help to define the rights and responsibilities of all countries within an equitable framework.

The principle of entitlements sets emissions limits for all countries. The principle of convergence holds every country responsible to make efforts to live within its entitlements. In simple words, this means that the world’s large emitters, the industrialised countries, should make urgent efforts to reduce their emissions to their entitled amounts whereas the world’s growing emitters take steps not to exceed theirs. The world, therefore, needs an ’ecologically effective’ international mechanism that provides incentives to all countries to put this plan into action. Every effort to delay puts the world, especially its poor people, at greater risk.

The framework of entitlements can be established in two simple ways. One, by setting a carbon dioxide atmospheric concentration target by a specified date and sharing the resulting carbon dioxide budget equitably or, two, by accepting an ad hoc per capita carbon entitlements for all people on earth to which all countries agree to converge. Flexibility would be needed to review the ad hoc per capita entitlement accepted or the targeted atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration every five to ten years to take into account the latest scientific knowledge on the economic, social and ecological impact of global warming. In case of adverse tidings, the carbon entitlements would obviously have to be reduced equitably.

Equal per capita entitlements could be built on one or a combination of the following concepts:

•          The emissions absorbed annually by the global atmospheric sinks, especially which arise out of common resources like the oceans, could be distributed equally among all the people of the world, thus providing each person with an equal entitlement.

•          A long-term per capita emissions convergence target could be identified and each person could be given that as entitlement. This target itself could be kept flexible, allowing movement up or down based on latest scientific information available of the seriousness of the emerging threat of global warming.

•          Future atmospheric concentration targets for different GHGs could be agreed upon, keeping in mind that the targeted concentration does not threaten to seriously destabilise the global climate. The global emissions budget that would allow humanity to reach that concentration target could then be equally distributed among all countries on the basis of equal per capita entitlements. Once the principle is accepted, national entitlements can be steadily phased in towards a convergence point of equal per capita entitlements over successive commitment periods. At the same time the targeted atmospheric concentration could be kept subject to review based on latest scientific information available.

A report released by UK’s Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (RCEP) in June 2000 said that an effective, enduring and equitable climate agreement will require GHG emission quotas to be allocated to countries on a simple and equal per capita basis.cxxiii  As a system of per capita entitlements cannot enter into force immediately, the report proposes “contraction and convergence.” Aubrey Meyer from the London-based Global Commons Institute, who has been a leading advocate of this approach, explains that initially the shares would maintain a status quo - based on each country’s income. However, over an agreed future period of time all countries would converge on the same allocation per head of their population in a base year that would be pre-determined by agreement. (See earlier discussion of Meyer’s egalitarian concept of allocations based on historical per capita entitlements: everyone should have an equal right to identical emissions.)

This would mean the quotas of industrialised countries fall year by year, while those of developing countries rise until all countries converge to emit equal amounts of GHG per head. The RCEP report proposes 2050 as the year for convergence. It will also be the cut-off date for national populations, i.e. further changes in a country’s population will not affect its emission quota. After the point of convergence has been reached, the quotas of all countries would contract at the same rate.

According to the report, commentators on climate negotiations have identified “contraction and convergence” as the leading contender among the various proposals for allocating emission quotas to countries in the long run. To make an agreement based on per capita allocation quotas more feasible, the report supports emissions trading between countries. Countries that wish to emit GHG in excess of their respective quotas would be able to purchase unused quotas at prices that give an incentive to others to emit less.

To achieve the reduction targets RCEP recommends reductions in energy demand and a large deployment of renewable energy sources, which could include energy harnessed from waves, undersea turbines powered by tidal waves, wind and solar energy.cxxiv 

G. Towards a Non-Carbon Worldcxxv 

Climate change can only be combated if the world can make a rapid transition to a non-carbon energy economy because then the limitations of environmental space posed by a carbon energy economy disappear. Therefore, the world needs an international mechanism that not only provides incentives to all countries to live within their entitled amounts but also helps to promote a rapid transition to a non-carbon energy economy.

This transition is also necessary because we cannot expect industrialised countries to reduce their high carbon emissions rapidly to the low levels that are necessary to combat climate change. The IPCC has recommended that the world must immediately reduce its 1990 emissions by 50-70 per cent to meet this objective. As this looks impossible in the near future if the world economy is to continue to function within a carbon energy economy - for the US this means a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from over 5 tonnes of carbon per capita to less than 0.5 tonnes of carbon per capita - then all that the world can now do is to move towards a non-carbon energy economy as fast as possible and, thus, hopefully restrict the economic and ecological damages caused by climate change.

Developing countries can help by changing the current trajectory of their energy path by relying more and more on non-carbon energy sources. This would be the most 'meaningful participation’ of developing countries. In fact, given a suitable economic environment, developing countries can provide a global market for a non-carbon energy source like solar energy because it has far more solar energy than the developed world and it has large numbers of people who are still not connected to the grid.

Such a framework would provide right away adequate incentives for all countries to cooperate with each other to meet the ultimate objective of the climate convention and solicit the participation of developing countries in a meaningful and equitable manner. Entitlements will provide this framework as it will give the South the incentive to control emissions and to move towards a non-fossil fuel trajectory while putting a clear target for industrialised countries.

The ultimate purpose of the framework is not to ensure that all countries, especially the industrialised countries, reach the impossibly low per capita emissions by remaining in a fossil fuel economy. It is to start a process of international cooperation to get the world moving rapidly towards a non-carbon energy transition, thus, combating climate change and ultimately rendering the carbon emissions entitlements redundant.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, industrialised countries have ingeniously allocated the right to trade emissions amongst themselves without the assignment of entitlements on the basis of equity. The simple formulation adopted by the Protocol is that countries take a percentage reduction on its current emissions. The Kyoto Protocol has turned 'compliance’ into an intense numbers game.

Proposed mechanisms like emissions trading, JI and CDM further provide opportunities to borrow 'emissions reduction’ from other countries where emissions reduction is already taking place because of a slowing down of the economy (like in Russia) or from those countries where reducing emissions is cheaper in the short run. This sets a precedent that will lead to more GHG emissions and will force each country to fiddle with their carbon budget.cxxvi 

In the Kyoto game, activities that have ceased or reduced immediately, since the base year of 1990, give the country a head start. Take the case of Australia. In 1990, 30 per cent of the country’s emissions were from deforestation alone. Since this deforestation was subsequently controlled, it can claim to have reduced its emissions since 1990. By winning the right to count any improvement from 1990 as its national credit, Australia can actually increase its emissions by 8 per cent. Given that these emissions are still present in the atmosphere and will cause global warming this is a death gift indeed.cxxvii 

If this innovative climate accounting is accepted as the method of calculating each country’s target then it virtually rewards the big polluters and lets them appropriate the common space. In fact, this method would suggest that developing countries should be allowed to expand their emissions before they accept a percentage cut. Therefore, for developing countries, which will enter the same numbers game sooner or later, the baseline will be very important. The Kyoto Protocol, therefore, provides a perverse incentive to polluters. The baseline method cannot be accepted as the principle for allocating atmospheric space.cxxviii 

What developing countries should also not accept is the principle of trading emissions, or international cooperation to prevent climate change, which is built on the argument that developing countries provide a lucrative opportunity to reduce emissions cheaply than in industrialised countries. Trading cannot simply be carried out to achieve economic efficiency. It must be undertaken in an environment that also promotes ecological efficiency and social efficiency.

A three-pronged combination of emissions trading, equitable entitlements, and promotion of renewables thus constitutes a truly ’meaningful’ plan of action.

H. The Road Ahead

Three months after its creation, the Kyoto Protocol officially opened for signatures to reach ratification at UN headquarters in New York City on March 16, 1998.cxxix 

Some of the small island nations most vulnerable to climate change-induced sea level rise were among the first countries to ratify the Protocol.cxxx 

However, as of now, out of some 180 countries Party to the Convention, only 84 have signed the Protocol and hardly 25 have ratified it. This is far short of the 55 that the Protocol requires to come into force. Also, under the Kyoto plan, the Protocol could go into effect only after ratification by countries accounting for 55 percent of the total Annex-I CO2  emissions  for 1990.cxxxi 

With the US and Russia together accounting for 53.73 per cent of the GHGs, it is imperative that the two put pen to paper. The US alone accounts for over a third of the world’s GHG emissions, while Russia accounts for 17.4 percent of CO2 emissions amo