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Home Systemic sustainability: the ultimate frontier Yet black is greener than green War: The elephant in the sustainability room A convenient tale PDCs to advance reductions beyond NDCs COP21: Historic, historical or hysterical? COP20: CBDR or ECBDR? Doha: Gateway or Giveaway? An epic battle in the wrong war What it takes to be sustainable Making the Copenhagen Accord equitable Post-2012 climate regime: equitable, effective, sufficient? An equitable and effective climate regime Are global citizens equal before the Climate Convention? Decarbonising with renewables? Extremely difficult Financial crisis and sustainable development |
Climate
and human rights: Are global citizens equal before the Climate Convention? The Kyoto Protocol sets emission reductions for developed parties which also imply emission rights. How equitable are these rights? The Declaration of Human Rights proclaims that all human beings are equal in rights, and equal before the law. This analysis shows that in per-capita terms the Kyoto emission rights are not only different for every developed party, but also disproportionately high in relation to both global emissions and emissions of most developing parties. 89% of developed parties have acquired emission rights higher than the 2007 global per-capita emission; conversely, 76% of developing parties emitted in 2007 less than the global per-capita level. How would parties fare under equal per-capita emission targets? Assuming global reduction targets of 14% by 2020 and 50% by 2050, 5% of developed parties have rights under both targets; by comparison, 60% of developing parties emit less than the 2020 target, and 39% less than the 2050 target. An equitable distribution of emission rights would make the Kyoto flexibility mechanisms and possible successors largely unnecessary. Technology transfer and climate financing for developing parties would also lose grounds. Instead, straightforward trading of unused emission rights would provide developing parties with their own source of just and immediate financing. Complete article (.pdf) Mhai Selph, November 2009
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