Memorandum submitted by Dr Benito Müller,
Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES)
There is a strong consensus within the policy
analysis community and beyond that developing countries will play
a key role in determining the success of the multilateral climate
change regime under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
(FCCC). It is equally widely understood that, as a consequence,
success will not be forthcoming if the key concerns of developing
countries—in particular those pertaining to inequities—are
not adequately taken into account in the future development of
the regime.
The Problem: There is a surprisingly
rigid North-South divide in the perception of what constitutes
the paramount climate change equity problem. In the Northern hemisphere,
where the relevant discussion is primarily led by non-government
stakeholders (academic, NGO), it is regarded to be the issue of
allocating emission mitigation targets;[29]
in the South, the concern—backed by many governments—is
above all about the discrepancy between the responsibility for,
and the sharing of climate impact burdens.[30]
The Causes: One of the root causes of
this Divide is a fundamental difference in the perception of climate
change itself. In the industrialised North there is a widely held
"ecological view" of the problem. Climate change is
perceived as a problem of polluting the environment, of degrading
the eco-system. As such, it's essence is seen to be that of a
wrongful act against "Nature." Accordingly, environmental
effectiveness—the capacity to "make good" the
human-inflicted harm on Nature—becomes a key criterion in
assessments of climate change measures. The chief victim from
this perspective is Nature, mankind's role is primarily that of
culprit. And while climate impacts on human welfare are regarded
as potentially life-style-threatening, they are taken to be self-inflicted
and hence largely "deserved." Environmental integrity
("to do justice to Nature"), is the overriding moral
objective. Issues of distributive justice are only of concern
insofar as they could become obstacles in the pursuit of this
paramount objective.[31]
The reality in the South is quite different:
climate change has primarily come to be seen as a human welfare
problem—not least because of the assessment work carried
out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The
harm is against humans, it is largely other-inflicted, and it
is not life-style-, but life-threatening. In short,
the chief victim of climate change is not "Nature",
but people and the paramount inequity is one between human victims
and human culprits. Climate change is a development problem, no
doubt! But for the developing world it is not a problem
of sustainable development—in the technical sense of "living
within one's environmental means"—it is a problem of
unsustainable development, in the non-technical sense of
failing to survive.
The Lessons: While lessons are bound
to differ between the stakeholders involved—governments,
non-governmental and intergovernmental organisations (NGOs, IGOs),
academic institutions—the one overarching lesson must be
to take heed of the programmatic demand made by India at the COP7
high-level segment (particularly if one believes the scope of
the current regime to be too narrow):
"The efforts so far have been focussed on
mitigation. In the coming decades, adaptation needs to be given
much greater attention. The next decade, Mr. President,
therefore should see concrete implementation of existing mitigation
commitments and active consideration and action on adaptation
to the adverse impacts of climate change."
At the policy decision-making level—the
level of national governments—the inevitable impacts and
their differentiated causal responsibilities must be fully acknowledged
and taken into account in the multilateral negotiations under
the Framework Convention (FCCC). In other words, while the mitigation
regime established under the Kyoto Protocol will inevitably require
some negotiation about architectural extensions (eg second commitment
period targets), the issue of sharing climate impact burdens must
be given centre stage, in particular because of the fact that
while mitigation burdens are still a matter of decision, many
of the impact burdens are not.
To enable this change of negotiating focus,
the immediate lesson at the level of policy analysis must
be to put much greater effort into thinking of innovative ways
in which these impact burdens could be distributed. The fact is
that—apart from the controversial monetizations of economic
cost-benefit analysis (themselves fraught with intrinsic equity
problems)—we seem to have little if any idea how such burdens—say,
that of the 25 million refugees expected by Bangladesh alone—could
actually be "shared", let alone be shared in an equitable
manner.
To sum up, for many developing countries climate
change is not an environmental problem, and it is not a question
of whether economic development can be sustained without harming
Nature, it is a simple issue of survival. As such, it must be
positioned firmly at the centre of any overseas development agenda.
Dr Benito Müller
Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES)
January 2002
29 For a potential compromise between Per Capita
and Grandfathering (Status quo) allocations see,
for example, Ulrich Bartsch and Benito Müller, Fossil
Fuels in a Changing Climate, Oxford: OUP 2000. Back
30
A study currently undertaken at the OIES about the perception
of these key climate change equity concerns has revealed a significant
North-South Divide. A review of COP7 media reports and ministerial
statements provided significant positive evidence that (i) the
most pressing inequity issue for developing country stakeholders
is having to bear climate impact burdens disproportionate with
causal responsibilities, and (ii) their view that this issue has
hitherto largely been ignored. A subsequent look at recent academic
climate equity literature lent support to this view. Indeed it
indicated that while "equity" is often being put on
the agenda by developing country experts, the scope of the agenda
itself-namely emission mitigation- was firmly set by the industrialised
world. Back
31
An equitable allocation of emission targets is primarily considered
to be a problem because it is seen to be a sine qua non
for an expansion of the mitigation regime to developing countries.
Allocations which would result in surplus permits are rejected
because they are perceived to be conflicting with the paramount
objective of environmental integrity. Back
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