As COP19 just entered the second week in Warsaw, the parties of the UNFCCC are getting closer to the new Climate Deal to be agreed in 2015 as they agreed in Durban. In order to avoid a repeat of the failures of Copenhagen, the negotiation needs to crack the hardest nuts as early as possible rather than leave them to the last minute. “Equity” is definitely the hardest nut among all the issues that need to be addressed. It will not be possible to reach any effective deal in 2015 unless the parties have the confidence the outcome would be equitable. Therefore, it is urgent to find a consensual common ground on equity that is not the minimum acceptable to the delegates in the negotiation room, but one that can maximize the courage and willingness of the world in joint hands to take action to avoid climate catastrophe.
Greenovation Hub（G:HUB）recently conducted a research project to interpret “Climate Equity” from the perspective as a Chinese NGO committed to climate protection and decarbonized development, where we recognizes that there are different interpretations of equity among different cultures and beliefs. However, we also believe that there are common values and common sense among all human beings that can be used to construct a common ground on equity.
KEY PRINCIPLES
Based on the past debates on climate equity, G:HUB has summarized its thoughts on three key issues that need to be incorporated in to the negotiation relating to equity.
1) THERE IS NO EQUITY BEYOND 2 degrees Celsius /450ppm
As recommended by the best available science, 2 degrees Celsius /450ppm is not an accurate safeguard but a precautionary threshold. This is not negotiable, because the chemical and physical laws in question do not negotiate. This is the precondition for any meaningful agreements. It is very unfortunate that the Shared Vision negotiation under the Long term Cooperative Action (LCA) track was delayed and ended up resulting in nothing. The laws of nature will not disappear if humans simply ignore them, and human will ultimately pay the price.
According to the difference principle in the justice theory of political philosopher John Rawls, inequalities in the distribution of goods are permitted only if those inequalities benefit the worst-off members of society. Based on this argument, among all options of distributing the effort of combatting climate change, the most just option should be the one that most in favor of the worst off group, which is the poor who mostly live in the developing countries. A safe climate is the basis for their livelihood, the bottom line of their interest. Their interest can hardly be improved when this line is crossed. Thus, there is no equity or justice beyond 2 degrees Celsius and countries should take this as the starting point of the negotiation and establish a global target as quick as possible.
2) SOLLUTIONS SHOULD BE VISION DRIVEN INSTEAD OF DEBT-RECOVERING
Historical responsibility is at the core of the equity nut. As the major contributors to the GHGs present in the atmosphere and the most capable countries to cope with the problem, the developed countries should be held responsible for climate change. There is ethically nothing wrong about calculating countries responsibility according to their historical emission. However G:HUB argues we start from there and go beyond it.
The United Nation system was built to avoid or solve future problems. It did not force the people from the defeated Axis countries to pay for what their governments had done; instead, it provided a platform for peaceful solutions and mechanisms to support all affected countries to recover and prosper. This happened because the creators of the UN had a vision of a world free from war. Such political wisdom is needed today.
Borrowing the historical wisdom of the UN, it seems wiser to impose the responsibility for problem solving to the people alive and capable than to the people already dead. This means the responsibility for combating climate changes might be also reasonable to be determined by everyone’s current capability rather than solely the actions of their ancestors. As a country’s historical emissions are often positively correlated to its economic growth, calculating based current capability does not deny the historical responsibility but reframes it into a forward-looking narrative.
3) REAFFIRM SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
There is no doubt that people’s right to sustainable development should be secured. The problem is that the term Sustainable Development is often misinterpreted into continuous economic growth. It is very easy to distinguish these two terms, sustainable development is measured by comparing the rate of human exploitation and the rate of nature’s self-recovery; continuous economic growth is measured by comparing the rate of growth between this year and the last. The former submits the economic activities to the planetary boundaries; the latter intends to grow as natural resources are infinite.
The right of each individual to sustainable development refers to the institutional and material preconditions for his/her pursuit to happiness. It is partly defined by the global climatic boundary, which is a foundation for people’s basic livelihood. This also implies that while realizing this right, the utilization of natural resources should not cross the planetary boundaries, or the ecological red line. The right to development is no longer the right to pollute. This means there are very limited options to develop in a climate-constrained world. Future development patterns should be redefined according to the new circumstances.
MOVING FORWARD
These are the three stumbling blocks of the debate concerning climate equity. Countries often tend to ignore the different views on these issues, and simply quote the principles of the Convention to support their own views. This polarization will not produce positive momentum and way out. Countries should face the fact that there is no easy way to solve the equity issue and should rise up to engage the most difficult issues early. This does not apply just to the field of global climate protection – all national development strategies or environmental policies need to follow the principle of equity, as this is a core value of sustainable development. This is especially true in developing countries, where people are facing the risk of severe poverty due to their countries’ vulnerability to the threat of climate change, frequent climate catastrophes, and reduced access to natural resources. With the promotion of equity at UNFCCC for creating a new climate deal, equity should also expand to domestic discussions on low carbon development. When developing carbon markets and transitioning economic and energy structures, it is crucial to ensure that vulnerable groups and the imbalance of regional development are fairly addressed and social resources are fairly distributed.
Read the full report in Chinese, pleases send us email to: policy@ghub.org
Thanks Oxfam Hongkong for supporting this research on climate equity
