Climate Of Discord

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Climate Of Discord

G8 makes no firm commitments on short-term emissions cuts

At the Italian town of L’Aquila, where G8 leaders have been meeting and holding discussions with their counterparts from elsewhere including the BRIC countries, there is agreement that action is needed to counter the global warming effect of polluting emissions generated by human activity. However, there is a deep divide between the developed and developing countries on how the responsibility is to be shared between them. The G8 call to countries just warming up on the development track, and with far lower per capita emissions than them, to undertake specific emissions cuts is deeply unfair. It would institute a discriminatory world order in which people from developing countries, which have less resources than developed countries, would be held to far tighter emission restrictions.
What’s even more galling is that while the G8 has verbally assured the rest of the world that member countries would reduce emissions by 80 per cent by the year 2050, this is being backed by neither immediate and short-term goals nor by a roadmap. The specifics of base year, too, are unclear. While developed countries demand that the developing ought to commit themselves first to cut down their emissions – despite India’s per capita emissions being 20 times less than that of the US – the developing countries expect the well-off nations to reduce their emissions by at least 40 per cent below 1990 levels in the short term.
As things stand there is a high emissions, high GDP link just as there is a low emissions, low GDP connection. Target-setters cannot ignore this. They can ask developing nations to undertake binding emissions cuts only after this link has been broken. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) had formulated the principle of common but differentiated responsibility – that was included in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol – so countries could undertake emissions cuts according to their historical responsibility as well as economic growth status or GDP. It also recognised that since per capita emissions in developing counties are relatively low and they have to meet their social and developmental needs of poverty alleviation, food for all and healthcare, these countries would not be subject to mandatory emissions cutbacks till they got a hold on sustainable development.
There is a strong case against imposition of a discriminatory carbon tax as part of a cap and trade mechanism – that is proposed in President Barack Obama’s Climate Bill pending Senate approval – on developing countries. While it would have no significant effect on per capita emissions, the tax would reduce GDP and increase poverty. There’s a mega UNFCCC meeting due at Copenhagen in December, where a new roadmap to a low-carbon destination is supposed to be finalised. That the US is on board is a good sign, but that is no reason to gloss over the details.