WE ARE NO DEBTORS! WE ARE CREDITORS OF A HISTORICAL, SOCIAL AND ECOLOGICAL DEBT!
|
|
“CLIMATE-DEBT” FAQ - Sent by Elizabeth Peredo, BOLIVIA |
|
|
Friday, 01 January 2010 |
|
Sent by Elizabeth Peredo, BOLIVIA
“CLIMATE-DEBT” FAQ
1. Is climate-debt just an NGO/activist idea?
No. The concept of climate-debt has been submitted to the Climate
Negotiations by over fifty countries
including Bolivia, Bhutan, Malaysia, Micronesia, Sri Lanka, Paraguay,
Venezuela and the Group of Least
Developed countries, representing 49 of the world's poorest and most
vulnerable countries.
You can read Bolivia’s submission on the concept here:
http://climate-debt.org/wpcontent/
uploads/2009/11/Bolivia-Climate-Debt-Proposal.pdf
You can read Bolivia’s proposed amendment to the Kyoto Protocol that
incorporates the ‘emissions debt’
concept here:
http://climate-debt.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Bolivia-Kyoto-Protocol-
Amendment1.pdf
Civil society is supporting these countries in calling for a just
solution to climate change.
2. Is climate-debt more than compensation for damages from climate change?
Yes. The climate-debt concept incorporates two distinct elements:
Adaptation debt – which represents the compensation owed to the poor for
the damages of climate
change they have not caused.
Emissions debt – which is compensation owed for their fair share of the
atmospheric space they cannot
use if we are stop catastrophic climate change.
3. What is meant by fair share of the 'atmospheric space’?
Most discussion of emission reductions focuses on percentage cuts (eg.
85% by 2050 etc.) However
what matters is the total amount of tonnes of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere (measured as:
GtCO2).
To prevent catastrophic climate change, and stabilize the atmosphere at
350 ppm total emissions must
be limited to around 1660 GtCO2 between the industrial revolution and
2050. We've already used most of
this up. Only 750 GtCO2 remains between the years 2000 and 2050.
These limits on emissions are referred to as the ‘global carbon budget'
or the 'atmospheric space.'
4. How should this carbon budget be divided?
The most equitable and logical way to divide it would be to allow each
person on earth the same amount
of atmospheric space, that is the same amount of GtCO2 emissions per
year. In practice, this is not
physically possible due to excessive historical emissions of the wealthy.
As this is not possible the difference between what is fair and what is
possible represents the rich world’s
‘emissions debt.’
5. What about past emissions or ‘historical responsibility’?
The world’s carbon budget – the total amount of CO2 we can emit ever -
did not start in the year 2000 (as
discussed above) so we also need to consider historical emissions. It is
these emissions which have
caused current climate change impacts and it is for these
emissions/impacts that the rich owe an
‘adaptation debt.’
FOR MORE INFORMATION SEE: WWW.CLIMATE-DEBT.ORG
People in the developed world, one fifth of the world’s population, have
used three fifths of all the carbon
budget/atmospheric space. Over-consuming the share of atmospheric space
by a factor of three
contributes to our ‘emissions debt.’
6. How do we then quantify this ‘emissions debt’?
Emission reductions from developed countries must reflect their
historical responsibility for the causes of
climate change and the needs of developing countries for adequate
atmospheric space in future.
Developed countries must repay developing countries in the atmospheric
space required for their
development by making emission reductions as deep as technically
possible. These reductions would be
called its ‘domestic commitment’. The more they repay now; the less they
repay later.
To the extent it is not technically possible to repay the full measure
of debt in terms of atmospheric space,
some part of may need to be repaid by developed countries in the form of
financing and technology - this
extra part would add up to the country’s ‘total commitment’.
7. What about adaptation debt?
Those who are harmed by climate change, but who did little if anything
to cause it, should be
compensated for the damage they suffer. The total cost of this damage is
difficult to estimate but in
principle, financing and compensation should cover: 1) avoidance costs;
2) actual costs; and 3)
opportunity costs. Recent estimates put future climate-related costs and
damages into the trillions. We
pay trillions to save our banks and build weapons. Surely we can find it
to stabilize the Earth's life support
system?
8. How does this help solve climate change?
This helps solves climate change by using science to determine the
perimeters – i.e. the carbon
budget/atmospheric space of a global agreement. Once the perimeters are
set it uses equity to determine
the best path forward making sure everyone can agree.
Those countries that have over-consumed their atmospheric space (and got
rich doing so) use that
wealth to convert to a low-carbon economy. They will not be able to make
all the cuts that science
requires at home – we are still too dependent on fossil fuels – so they
enable developing countries to
avoid following the same polluting development pathway they did, through
a green ‘Marshall Plan’ to
ensure that no new countries adopt the wealthy’s over-consuming and
unsustainable lifestyle.
9. What needs to happen at Copenhagen?
To honour its climate debts to the poor the developed world needs to:
a) Commit to meet its adaptation debt by meeting the real costs of
climate change impacts;
b) Commit to an amendment to the Kyoto Protocol that recognizes a
domestic target and a total
target for each developed country that will put the world on a path to
live within our carbonbudget.
10. What can you do?
Visit www.climate-debt.org for more information.
Get in touch with your Government to support climate-debt proposals at
Copenhagen.
Support an NGO that has signed on to the campaign for the re-payment of
climate-debts.
|
|
|
|
|
