Why Developing Nations Want More Emissions Cuts from Wealthy Nations
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Related subjects: Carbon Emissions, Climate Change, Diplomacy & Politics, Energy Supply, Environment & Ecology, Global, J.E. Robertson, Renewable Resources, Sustainable Development, U.S. Environment, U.S. news Comments Off
The dispute over whether or not wealthy industrialized nations like the US can agree with fast-developing nations, still in the process of industrialization, like China and India, on how best to formulate global emissions policies to combat climate change has been explained backwards. It is commonly said that China and India want the right to continue burning ever-increasing amounts of carbon-based fuels until they catch up to the US and the industrialized nations in per-capita emissions levels. But the problem is more a matter of what cuts the industrial nations are willing to undertake.
The logic typically cited in this dispute is that industrialized nations have had hundreds of years to burn carbon without restraint and industrializing nations should have similar rights. But the problem really hinges on the fact that industrialized nations are intent on continuing to emit far in excess of the levels that will be permitted to developing nations.
By setting the cuts relative to date (cuts of a % below 2005 levels, or 1990 levels), industrialized nations essentially guarantee that their emissions will always be far in excess of those of developing nations. This works like an economic arms race, incentivizing developing nations to rapidly expand carbon-burning projects, in hopes they can use a later date (2010, say, instead of 2005) as the reference for comprehensive cuts.
Framing the debate as revolving around developing nations’ wish to expand their emissions is disingenuous. China, India, the Philippines, Brazil and Indonesia, are all rapidly expanding investment in renewable energy resources, and policy-makers in each of these leading developing nations seem aware of the very real interests their nations have in comprehensive greening of the energy and industrial sectors.
But they are faced with the problem of far more industrialized nations, with far more per-capita industrial capacity and far more per-capita wealth, openly seeking the special privilege to permanently burn far more carbon-based fuels than they would be permitted. There is a very real economic disincentive to approve such a scheme, and negotiators from wealthy nations understand this.
It is clear that the wealthiest nations will have to make the most severe cuts to their overall carbon emissions, in order to reduce global average per-capita emissions to a “climate-neutral” level. The US has laid out plans that would cut emissions 83% below 2005 levels by the year 2050. This is a bold goal, and worthy of praise, but policy-makers need to think seriously about what it would mean for every nation on Earth to burn 17% as much carbon per capita as the US did in the year 2005, in the year 2050, when global population is projected to be between 8 and 9 billion.
The most heavily impacted nations, like the small Pacific Ocean island nation of Tuvalu and the Indian Ocean island nation of the Maldives, both of which face literal disappearance under rising seas, know that such global emissions levels would likely not save them from the ravages of global climate destabilization.
In order to actually have the desired impact of curbing a persistent increase in global average temperatures, and therefore rolling back the process of climate destabilization, the wealthiest nations need to be honest about what global average per-capita carbon emissions levels are permissible, given the goals enumerated for the Copenhagen climate conference, then aim to achieve that per-capita level within their own borders.
It is clear that nations like the US, the UK and Russia, each enjoy enough clean energy generating capacity (if the infrastructure is furnished and the technology deployed), in any combination of wind, solar, wave and geothermal energy, to provide for their domestic energy needs without burning carbon at all. What is not clear is how they will move toward that goal.
The Swiss firm Solar Impulse is building actual aircraft powered exclusively by solar-voltaic cells. Their early prototype has now achieved flight, and they are working on more advanced designs that would be able to use solar energy to fly at night. Such technologies, in concert with smart electricity grids, all-electric automobiles and electric or magnetic high-speed trains, will allow for the wholesale greening of the transport economy.
The only reason there has not been more aggressive policy designed to move industrialized nations in that direction until now is a lack of political will and/or understanding. The US administration is now promoting high-speed rail, electric cars, clean energy and a smart electricity grid, with unprecedented commitment, both in terms of policy support and direct funding, and that breathes new life into the global quest for a clean energy economy, but the emissions cutting goals of wealthy nations continue to reflect a lack of political will.
The US Congress is currently proposing cuts of 17% to 20% by the year 2020, even as the science and the economic projections suggest something between 50% and 80% would be needed from the US in order to really motivate a global shift toward zero-combustion energy markets that have a climate-neutral environmental impact. It is that paradoxical combination of lagging political will and bold diplomatic leadership that has developing nations showing skepticism about signing up to an emissions-cutting regime that will grant the heaviest carbon polluters the right to continue being the worst offenders.
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