Sivan Kartha

The right to development in a climate constrained world: The Greenhouse Development Rights framework

The Bali roadmap and North-South cooperation : the right to development in a climate-constrained world

Baseline recommendations for greenhouse gas mitigation projects in the electric power sector

The success of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and other credit-based emission trading regimes depends on effective methodologies for quantifying a projects emissions reductions. The key methodological challenge lies in estimating projects counterfactual emission baseline, through balancing the need for accuracy, transparency, and practicality. Baseline standardisation (e.g. methodology, parameters and/or emission rate) can be a means to achieve these goals. This paper compares specific options for developing standardised baselines for the electricity sector—a natural starting point for baseline standardisation given the magnitude of the emissions reductions opportunities. The authors review fundamental assumptions that baseline studies have made with respect to estimating the generation sources avoided by CDM or other emission-reducing projects. Typically, studies have assumed that such projects affect either the operation of existing power plants (the operating margin) or the construction of new generation facilities (the build margin). The authors show that both effects are important to consider and thus recommend a combined margin approach for most projects, based on grid-specific data. They propose a three-category framework, according to projects’ relative scale and environmental risk.

The Greenhouse Development Rights Framework

The vast majority of emission reductions required to prevent dangerous climate change must be made in the developing world. Yet the human development aspirations of developing countries requires expanded energy services, which has historically always been accompanied by rising carbon emissions. Developing countries have thus firmly asserted that a solution to climate change cannot come at the expense of their development. The Greenhouse Development Rights (GDR) framework is a climate regime architecture explicitly structured to safeguard a right to development, and thus make an ambitious global solution possible. It is a burden-sharing framework that defines national obligations, based on responsibility for the climate change problem and capacity to solve it. Both are defined with respect to a “development threshold” that serves to relieve from the costs and constraints of the climate crisis those individuals still striving for a decent standard of welfare. Highlighting the United States and China, we discuss implications in the context of an international funding mechanism and a global cap and trade system. The GDR approach is relevant to a next phase of the global climate regime negotiated in Copenhagen as a framework for principle-based commitments for industrialized countries, and a basis for future evolution toward a globally differentiated system.

Greenhouse Development Rights: A Proposal for a Fair Global Climate Treaty

One of the core debates concerning equity in the response to the threat of anthropogenic climate change is how the responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should be allocated, or, correspondingly, how the right to emit greenhouse gases should be allocated. Two alternative approaches that have been widely promoted are, first, to assign obligations to the industrialized countries on the basis of both their ability to pay (wealth) and their responsibility for the majority of prior emissions, or, second, to assign emissions rights on a (possibly modified) equal per capita basis. Both these proposals ignore intra-national distributional equity. Instead, we develop a policy framework we call ‘Greenhouse Development Rights’ (GDRs) which allocates obligations to pay for climate policies (both mitigation and adaptation) on the basis of an individually quantified metric of capacity (ability to pay) and responsibility (prior emissions). Crucially, the GDRs framework looks at the distribution of income within countries and treats people of equal wealth similarly, whatever country they live in. Thus even poor countries have obligations proportional to the size and wealth of their middle and upper classes, defined relative to a ‘development threshold’. While this method nominally identifies the ‘right to development’ as applying to people, not countries, as a proposal for a treaty among sovereign nations, there is no obvious way to give legal meaning to that right. In this paper, then, we raise some of the philosophical and political questions that arise in trying to quantify capacity and responsibility and to use the ‘right to development’ as a principle for allocating costs.* *The ‘Greenhouse Development Rights’ (GDRs) framework is a collective project. The core team includes the author, Tom Athanasiou, Sivan Kartha and Eric Kemp-Benedict; this is the ‘we’ that appears where the text refers to the project, as in ‘we intended this’, and so on. This paper, however, is primarily the authors own product and, beyond the description of GDRs, my collaborators have not read or approved it; thus much of the writing and philosophical speculation uses the first person singular. And, while credit for useful work goes to all team members, the blame for philosophical sloppiness remains with the author.

Greenhouse Development Rights: towards an equitable framework for global climate policy

The assignment of obligations to pay for mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and for adaptation to unavoidable climate change is a critical and controversial component of international negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In this article we present a new framework called ‘Greenhouse Development Rights’ (GDRs): a formula for the calculation of national obligations on the basis of quantified capacity (wealth) and responsibility (contribution to climate change). GDRs seek to preserve the ‘right to development’ by exempting from obligation any income and emissions under a ‘development threshold’. By taking into account the distribution of income and emissions within countries, and calculating national obligations as if they were the aggregated obligations of individuals, the framework treats every global citizen identically, and allocates obligations even to poor countries that are proportional to their actual middle-class and wealthy populations. When coupled to a trajectory of rapid emissions reductions (for example, 80 per cent reduction below 1990 levels by 2050), the framework results in larger reduction obligations for both rich and poor countries than they currently seem prepared to accept. However, the formula may be ‘fair enough’ to break the impasse that currently separates rich and poor countries in the negotiations.

Future mitigation commitments: differentiating among non-Annex I countries

Abstract In the long term, any definition of adequacy consistent with UNFCCC Article 2 will require increased mitigation efforts from almost all countries. Therefore, an expansion of emission limitation commitments will form a central element of any future architecture of the climate regime. This expansion has two elements: deepening of quantitative commitments for Annex B countries and the adoption of commitments for those countries outside of the current limitation regime. This article seeks to provide a more analytical basis for further differentiation among non-Annex I countries. To be both fair and reflective of national circumstances, it is based on the criteria of responsibility, capability and potential to mitigate. Altogether, non-Annex I countries were differentiated in four groups, each including countries with similar national circumstances: newly industrialized countries (NICs), rapidly industrializing countries (RIDCs), ‘other developing countries’, and least developed countries (LDCs). Based on the same criteria that were used for differentiating among non-Annex I countries, a set of decision rules was developed to assign mitigation and financial transfer commitments to each group of countries (including Annex I countries). Applying these decision rules results in (strict) reduction commitments for Annex I countries, but also implies quantifiable mitigation obligations for NICs and RIDCs, assisted by financial transfers from the North. Other developing countries are obliged to take qualitative commitments, but quantifiable mitigation commitments for these countries and the LDC group would be not justifiable. As national circumstances in countries evolve over time, the composition of the groups will change according to agreed triggers.

Expanding roles for modernized biomass energy

Biomass energy can be “modernized” worldwide, i.e., produced and used much more efficiently and cost-competitively, generally in the more convenient forms of gases, liquids, or electricity. This article is a summary of a recently published book whose objective is to provide information to help expand the contributions that modernized biomass energy makes to sustainable development in developing countries. The article discusses the present and possible future magnitude of bioenergy contributions to global energy supply, efficiency gains that are possible by modernization of bioenergy, alternative sources of biomass for energy, a variety of socioeconomic and environmental issues that can arise with the production and use of bioenergy, and institutions and institutional mechanisms that would facilitate a greater role for modernized biomass energy.

Market penetration metrics: tools for additionality assessment?

Abstract Project-based emission reduction or ‘offset’ programs are being implemented widely, from the CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) to corporate voluntary efforts and municipal and state-level activities. Additionality assessment remains a central and persistent challenge in all programs. Concerns have been raised with methods currently used, such as investment analysis, barrier analysis, and performance thresholds. They have been variously critiqued for high costs, resistance to standardization, weak environmental integrity, and susceptibility to gaming. Technology penetration rates provide another means to infer additionality, and could be a potentially useful complement to other methods. The notion is that emerging technologies with low but increasing penetration rates typically require some type of support, as might be provided through offsets markets, to compete effectively in the marketplace. For penetration rate analysis to provide a useful tool for additionality assessment, several fundamental questions need to be addressed. What do penetration rates represent and how can they be measured? How can additionality evaluation utilize penetration rates? For which sectors and project types are the use of penetration rates most promising? This article shows that penetration tests have a mixture of pluses and minuses, with greater relevance in certain market niches and regions. Reasonable ranges for penetration thresholds are discussed, along with partial crediting approaches to reduce ‘knife-edge’ effects.

Cascading biases against poorer countries

To the Editor — A recent article by Robiou du Pont et al.1 suggests that wealthier countries (for example, the members of the EU) have made more ‘equitable’ contributions to the Paris goals than poorer countries (such as India and China), with most other developing countries somewhere in between. These results are counter-intuitive, given that developed countries have the majority of the responsibility for the atmospheric build-up of GHGs2 and the majority of the financial wherewithal to help solve the climate problem3, yet their Paris pledges amount to fewer tons of mitigated emissions than developing countries4. The objective of Robiou du Pont and colleagues (to examine multiple equity approaches) is laudable, however, the methodology reflects a selection of approaches that are biased in favour of wealthier, higheremitting countries in three ways. First, the approaches1 selected to represent the IPCC equity categories are skewed by the prominence of ‘grandfathering’ as an allocation principle. Grandfathering, (or the constant emissions ratio1), privileges today’s high-emitting countries when allocating future emission entitlements. Despite acknowledging that grandfathering is criticized on equity grounds, it is chosen to represent one of their five categories because “it is implicitly followed by many of the developed countries”1. This rationale is no basis for including a political position in a survey of equity approaches, and by construction it generates outcomes that favour developed countries. Its consequences can be anticipated: for example, grandfathering gives the EU and United States per capita allocations that are four and nine times higher, respectively, than India, despite India still combating widespread energy poverty, with hundreds of millions of residents without basic energy services5. Exacerbating the problem, grandfathering is introduced into two other approaches (equal per capita and capability)1. While these approaches draw on ethically defensible bases (equality and ability to pay, respectively), the methodology1 dilutes them by means of a gradual transition period from pure grandfathering to the specified equity approach. (This concession cannot be rationalized on the basis of avoiding technically implausible reduction rates, nor economic efficiency, since Robiou du Pont and colleagues analyse transferable emissions allocations rather than physical emissions.) With global emissions declining rapidly towards zero, this slow shift means that nearly half of the remaining carbon budget is grandfathered, rather than being allocated according to the nominal equity principle of each approach. Making grandfathering a central part of three out of the five equity approaches used embeds a bias against poorer and lower-emitting countries. Second, Robiou du Pont et al. present only five of the six categories used by the IPCC, excluding one category based exclusively on the Responsibility Principle — that the largest contributors to global GHG concentrations ought to do the most to reduce global emissions. This exclusion discounts a key principle of the Rio Convention and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and compounds the bias against poorer, loweremitting countries. Third, the “IPCC equity categories”1 referenced cannot be considered an authoritative and ethically robust taxonomy of equity approaches in any sense. The IPCC borrowed this categorization from a single study6, intending simply to present data from an incomplete and non-representative sampling of approaches. The original study cautioned that “the current literature only covers a small proportion of the possible allocation approaches” and observed that “many different categorizations ... can be found in the literature”6. Indeed, the IPCC recognized the ethical importance of several other equity notions relevant for emissions allocations. These include: the relative moral relevance of consumption-based versus production-based emissions, survival versus luxury emissions, progressive versus regressive allocation of mitigation costs, prioritarianism versus egalitarianism and finally — but not least — the right to development and the critical ethical importance of the eradication of poverty. Incidentally, but importantly, each of these issues engender ethical arguments that imply greater allocations for poorer and lower-emitting countries compared with the subset of approaches used by Robiou du Pont and co-authors. Neglecting them compounds the bias in the results. Ultimately, the article’s conclusions are not so much derived as predetermined by the authors’ biased normative choices. These methodological and logical shortcomings of Robiou du Pont et al. reveal a more profound problem. When reflecting on the relative fairness of countries’ pledges and actions, the role of scholarly analysis and quantification is to help clarify the ethical underpinnings and consequences of the choices facing society. It is emphatically not to make those normative choices. However, the article by Robiou du Pont et al. has made a number of normatively crucial choices, and not explicitly but rather in a way that obfuscates the ethical underpinnings and their consequences. While presented as a neutral, ecumenical, comprehensive survey that follows an objective IPCC taxonomy, the overall effect — far from illuminating the moral choices confronting society — at best conceals the moral choices and at worst arrogates them. However, we are in utter agreement with Robiou du Pont et al. that “equity is still central for the ratcheting process and when discussing the adequate magnitude of climate finance and support”1. Climate change is a global commons problem, and broad global cooperation is needed to address it. As the IPCC noted, an agreement that is “seen as equitable can lead to more effective cooperation”7. The chances of keeping warming to tolerable levels vastly improve if there is a robust and productive conversation about fairness and equity8. ❐