Author: Karey Harrison
University of Southern Queensland
Australian Al Gore Presenter
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| ID 129 Author: Karey Harrison University of Southern Queensland Australian Al Gore Presenter |
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Abstract: Global action is required to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions sufficiently to minimize the risk of reaching dangerous levels of climate change.
Without international agreement on the principles for allocating emission limits it is unlikely that sufficient reductions in emissions will be achieved.
This paper will examine economic, ethical and ecological considerations in establishing appropriate principles for allocating emission limits.
In his Review Stern resisted the view that each person had a right to an equal (very small) quantum of greenhouse emissions because, according to him, this view had been ‘merely asserted’, not argued for. On the basis of this lack of argument, Stern rejected proposals such as ‘contraction & convergence’, which assume that ‘no-one has the right to emit beyond that level without incurring the duty to compensate’. (2006, 42).
This paper will attempt to redress this lack by arguing that the atmosphere’s capacity to absorb greenhouse gases is a global commons which no one has any a priori right to a greater share of than any other person.
Establishing emission limits, permits, or rights is in effect a move to privatise this commons. International agreement on reducing emissions is unlikely to be reached if some countries try to claim more than their fair share of this global commons, or deny their duty to compensate for damages caused.
This paper will evaluate the ethical basis for relying on equality of emission rights as compared with advocating developmental equity as the basis of emission allocation.
Notes
Stern, N, 2006 ‘Technical annex: ethical frameworks and intertemporal equity’, Stern review: report on the economics of climate change, Cambridge University Press, UK, p41-54, accessed 12 March 2008, http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/9/A/Chapter_2_Technical_Annex.pdf