Developed-Developing Nations

Following on COP 15 through 17, the world is moving towards a post-Kyoto Protocol era in which all of the nations of the world will be expected to contribute to decarbonising the global economy. This stems from increased recognition that if developed nations decarbonise, but developing nations remain on their current trajectories of growth of carbon emissions, it will not be possible to achieve the climate change targets set internationally (a less than 2 degrees C rise in mean global temperature, translating roughly into a doubling of the pre-industrial revolution levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere).

While this certainly is the case, it also is the case that the developed nations have a special responsibility to not only decarbonise their own economies, but to help with decarbonisation of the developing nations. This is both a matter of equity, justice and fairness on the one hand, and of economic and political reality on the other. The populations of developing nations are deserving of increased access to the world's resources and economic growth, raising those populations out of poverty and all of the public health problems that come with poverty. The key is in sustainable growth, which means a significantly lower carbon intensity (carbon dioixde released per unit of Gross Domestic Product or GDP). Hence the need to find a path forward in which (i) the developed nations decarbonise, (ii) this decarbonisation produces technology innovation and drives down costs of technologies so they become feasible for the developing nations to adopt and (iii)

finance, knowledge and institutional capacity flow from the developed to developing nations to support adoption.

Finding this path requires understanding not only the trajectory of emissions reduction in the currently developed world, but the trajectory that must be achieved in the developing nations as the emerging Durban Platform is defined and put in place.

Our one caveat

Policy discussions about the roles of the developed and developing nations in reducing climate change risks are always contentious. What is clear to all is that carbon emissions by developed nations in growing their economies got us to where we are now, and that emissions of developing nations will in part determine where we go from here. So all nations must play their role.

But this movement forward will only be feasible, politically acceptable and ethically just if the developed nations take the first significant steps to decarbonising their own economies, use that process to innovate and drive down the costs of low carbon technologies, and then assist the developing nations in adopting those technologies through transfer of finance and technological skills.

All of our analyses are guided by that ethos.

To contribute to this process, 4CMR is collaborating with the E3 (Energy-Economy-Environment) Foundation to use a completely open-source, communal, simple to operate, flexible computer model to identify the different pathways through which these goals can be met. The intention is not to specify which policies, mechanisms, instruments, etc will be needed, but rather how specific features of the climate problem (per capita emissions, population size, efficiency of energy use, land development, etc) might be configured to reach the international policy target mentioned at the top of this page.

Follow these links to become a part of this Community of researchers and analysts who will produce guidance to the world's policy makers on trajectories of decarbonisation that allow for sustainable economic growth in the developing nations while protecting the world against the risks of climate change:

Why is the model open-source?

What is the model?

How do you use the model to identify "trajectories"?

How can you contribute to its improvement?

How will the findings be used?

Are you willing to share your ideas on the development of the model? Send your comments, suggestions, improvements, etc to Doug Crawford-Brown at djc77@cam.ac.uk. These will be added as Comments at the bottom of this page. Sorry, but Google doesn't seem to allow Comments from outside viewers of the site.

Comments

Douglas Crawford-Brown - 18 Dec 2011 07:05

There are some limitations of the model that we would like to improve:

1. The net primary productivity is not currently a function of atmospheric carbon or temperature. It should be, although the effect is not large.

2. There is no correlation between population size and per capita emissions currently within the model. These are estimated independently, although scenarios can be simulated in which both are being changed (but a change in one doesn't automatically affect the other in the model).

3. There is no mechanism in the model by which prices of energy technologies decrease automatically as decarbonisation occurs. The user must specify a rate of decarbonisation and assume that this is in part a function of technological learning.