Climate Fairness/Climate Debt - Eco Justice for Poorer Nations
“Worldwide, less than 8% of folks are responsible for 50% of emissions”, according to Professor Stephen Pacala of Princeton, co-author of Stabilization Wedges.
This group has a higher annual income than even the average American. But the US has the highest per-capita energy consumption rate of any nation, out-consuming the five most populated nations combined. Quite recent studies have confirmed what many already knew: that more affluent people consume more energy, and generate more green house gas (ghg) emissions. Thus, making significant cuts in ghg (to slow warming trends and mitigate climate change) without big cuts in this group’s ghg emissions is a major challenge.
The impact of greenhouse gases on global warming in the short term, and the possibility of severe climate change in the medium to long term, promise to create significant and lasting hardships for everyone. But these hardships will fall hardest on the world’s poorest, who are the ones least responsible for ghg-induced climate change.
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Currently, all cap-and-trade and carbon taxing results in a flat tax on carbon usage. This will of course impact the poor the most. This reasoning has been used as a justification for not imposing carbon caps and taxes, as well as not implementing other environmental regulations–such as shifting to alternative forms of energy which, in the short term, may be more costly to low-income consumers (as opposed to cheap, but highly polluting, fuel sources like oil and coal). If you make energy more expensive to use, so the argument goes, this will inconvenience everyone to some extent, but it’ll be much less of a problem for more prosperous people.
However, environmental scientists, advocates for renewable energy, and many organizations working with developing nations point out that the price of inaction will also fall hardest on people of modest or little means. Leaving things as they are will lead to more severe outcomes, and greater hardship for the world’s poorest.
But simply taxing carbon usage won’t be enough to make a real impact on ghg levels. Consider a carbon tax of thirty dollars per metric ton of carbon used (e.g., in construction materials for a building or home), as has been proposed. If constructing a high end, upper income level house uses 100 tons of carbon (e.g., to make the concrete), this comes to an additional cost of 3000.00 for that home, which will not be a sufficient incentive for the rich to build smaller homes. It is thus no great incentive for any “transformative” (top-down) carbon-saving policy.
One suggestion to remedy this disparity is to implement a tiered carbon tax structure. According to Daphne Wysham, director of the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network (writing for Ecologicaldebt.org), “Unless we get carbon pricing dramatically tiered in a way that it impacts wealthy as much or more than the poor … [this policy will fail]… Without big ghg cuts by the wealthiest you can’t mathematically get cuts of the scale needed.” The goal of this policy work is to impact wealthy ghg levels while simultaneously alleviating much of the financial burden on those who can least shoulder it.
Matthew Iglesias, posting a comment to a Sightline.org blog series on Climate Fairness, has suggested the following: 1) cap carbon, 2) auction the permits, and 3) rebate all the revenue on a per capita basis. The bottom two income quintiles come out substantially ahead; the third quintile also does better, but just slightly; the fourth quintile does slightly worse; and the wealthiest income quintile takes a small hit.
[...] These disparities are starting to force policy makers and societies to rethink their beliefs about over-population, climate fairness, and international debt (see my earlier article: Climate Fairness / Climate Debt - Eco-Justice for Poorer Nations) [...]
[...] The appeal of shortwave, geoengineering rests in its purportedly rapid, remediation impact (although no global experiments have been conducted yet). However, the combined climate impact of GHG increases with a geoengineered reduction in shortwave radiation is not known, and, it is feared, could result in environmental “winners” and “losers”–meaning some regions of the planet could experience severe drought, and even increased conflict over water resources. In such a win/lose scenario, wealthier nations–even those impacted negatively–will most likely fair better than poorer ones, as these have the military power, money and resources to compensate for severe agricultural losses. Emergency, geoengineering solutions for climate control will most likely make the emerging issue of “climate fairness” and “climate debt” more pressing (see my previous blog post Climate Fairness/Climate Debt - Eco Justice for Poorer Nations. [...]
True, 8% of people may make 50% of emissions, but those 8% are those creating the modern technology and higher standard of living for the other 92%. If we pay off poorer nations from the pockets of our polluting producers, they may have more money, but there will be nothing for them to buy, and no use for the money save using it as toilet tissue. Instead, we should encourage through free market initiatives the mass production and development of clean air resources for the pleasure of the buyers, which can then be passed on and sold to the poorer countries to produce more goods and grow richer and more sustainable.
To Mike:
Actually, that is not so. The “other 92%” –assuming that this means the bulk of humanity that subsists on 3.00 or less per day–do not partake of the technology and products that the top 8% produce–how could they afford it?
But even if we knock off 10% or more of that (82%) to account for the rapidly developing nations that are craving Western style living standards (a worrisome trend), they are not necessarily there yet (i.e., at our level of consumption)…the remainder are still stuck in poverty and subsistence living …it will be a long time before they catch up to us even half way.
But you do bring into relief a great myth: that what we produce benefits everyone else. In fact, most of what we produce here gets consumed here (or by our European Allies. Some goes to China and Russia, little, proportionately, to the majority of poorer nations.
Further, your statement: “nothing to buy” is astounding! You forget that most of the people in these countries produce their own food, clothing and energy (harvesting local sources of coal and firewood) and could certainly invest in local economic engines (manufacturing, etc.)….and, just maybe there are better things to do with money than buy more things from us that aren’t needed.
Even further, reducing our emissions does not in any way equate with having fewer exports (for poorer nations to buy), or, that the things worth buying (by poorer, foreign citizens) are those produced through polluting means. Your argument is fallacious on numerous levels. Responsible consumer habits here have generated an entire industry around green and sustainable products. These poorer folks could buy these latter products, services, and, if needed, energy sources, thus increasing the demand and market for green products.
I would do a bit more study on global economics, trade and productivity…it will be an eye-opening experience.