TY - BOOK
T1 - Assessing countries' historical contributions to GHG emissions
AU - Ekholm, Tommi
AU - Lindroos, Tomi J.
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - One of the main principles in the UNFCCC is the
recognition of parties' "common but differentiated
responsibilities and respective capabilities". Countries'
past contributions to climate change or global greenhouse
gas (GHG) emissions differ, which has prompted discussion
over their historical responsibility for current and
future climate change.
This report first assesses the countries' contribution to
historical GHG emissions using different scopes of time
and emission sources, both as cumulative emissions and
cumulatively on per-capita terms. The choice over the
scope used affects the countries' contribution
significantly. Whether emissions prior to 1990 are
accounted affects particularly the contribution of USA,
EU and China, whereas the inclusion of LULUCF emissions
has a tremendous effect on the contribution of Brazil and
Indonesia. When emissions are measured on per-capita
terms, the contribution of e.g. Brazil and Indonesia can
become significant, while that of EU is decreased
considerably. Different assumptions hence lead to very
different conclusions on countries' responsibilities for
climate change.
The report also analyses the possibility to define
per-capita based emission budgets to countries, from
which the historical emission would be subtracted. The
choice of scope has again large implications for the
countries' remaining budgets, but regardless of the
choice, such an approach would lead to unrealistic
emission pathways for USA and Russia, making it unclear
whether such tonne-per-tonne accounting of historical
emissions is reasonable in burden sharing. Therefore, to
make historical responsibility a usable concept in
climate negotiations, the scope of countries'
accountability for past emissions should be first settled
and efforts should be viewed in a broader context than
that of direct emission reductions.
AB - One of the main principles in the UNFCCC is the
recognition of parties' "common but differentiated
responsibilities and respective capabilities". Countries'
past contributions to climate change or global greenhouse
gas (GHG) emissions differ, which has prompted discussion
over their historical responsibility for current and
future climate change.
This report first assesses the countries' contribution to
historical GHG emissions using different scopes of time
and emission sources, both as cumulative emissions and
cumulatively on per-capita terms. The choice over the
scope used affects the countries' contribution
significantly. Whether emissions prior to 1990 are
accounted affects particularly the contribution of USA,
EU and China, whereas the inclusion of LULUCF emissions
has a tremendous effect on the contribution of Brazil and
Indonesia. When emissions are measured on per-capita
terms, the contribution of e.g. Brazil and Indonesia can
become significant, while that of EU is decreased
considerably. Different assumptions hence lead to very
different conclusions on countries' responsibilities for
climate change.
The report also analyses the possibility to define
per-capita based emission budgets to countries, from
which the historical emission would be subtracted. The
choice of scope has again large implications for the
countries' remaining budgets, but regardless of the
choice, such an approach would lead to unrealistic
emission pathways for USA and Russia, making it unclear
whether such tonne-per-tonne accounting of historical
emissions is reasonable in burden sharing. Therefore, to
make historical responsibility a usable concept in
climate negotiations, the scope of countries'
accountability for past emissions should be first settled
and efforts should be viewed in a broader context than
that of direct emission reductions.
KW - climate
KW - greenhouse gas emissions
KW - Brazilian proposal
KW - historical responsibility
M3 - Report
T3 - VTT Research Report
BT - Assessing countries' historical contributions to GHG emissions
PB - VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
ER -