APPENDIX 1
Memorandum submitted by Action for a Global
Climate Community
A GLOBAL CLIMATE COMMUNITY: A FEASIBLE WAY
FORWARD
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. Action for a Global Climate Community
was formed by a group of ngos and individuals to carry forward
the conclusions of an international conference held at Wilton
Park in December 2003 and organised by the One World Trust. (See
attachment, the "Chanctonbury Initiative"). We call
for preparation of a new initiative by the end of 2005 to build
global support for a Global Climate Community of willing countries
from north and south based on the contraction and convergence
approach. This long term strategy to resolve the climate crisis
should be a central theme of the European Union's Common Foreign
and Security Policy and the UK Presidency in 2005.
2. European experience has shown that a
group of pioneering countries ready to act can inspire others
to join them. In the 1950s six countries founded the Coal and
Steel Community which has later grown to become a Union of all
Europe. Today we propose that key countries from North and South,
such as the EU, India and states from Africa and Latin America
seek to mobilise the widest possible group of willing states to
implement the UNFCCC at an accelerated pace, at the latest by
2012.
3. They should invite them to negotiate
a Protocol of Enhanced Cooperation which establishes: a maximum
concentration target for greenhouse gases, a global emissions
budget for the contraction required, a date for the convergence
of emissions to equal per person allowances, an emissions trading
market, enabling measures and resources, and effective and accountable
institutions, including a parliamentary body for the Community.
4. Effective action of this kind is the
most effective way of mobilising reluctant countries, notably
the United States—together with the growing impact of climate
change. The US is unlikely to rejoin Kyoto but the best outcome
for the G8 would be if the new administration is persuaded to
accept that it does have an essential responsibility to join in
collective action to meet the climate crisis, and prepares to
rejoin the multilateral process at a later date. The goal should
be for all states to join the GCC by 2020
5. Our proposal is feasible because convergence
to equal per person allowances offers the equity that can mobilise
the support of developing countries some of whom, such as India
and African states, have supported it for many years. In Europe,
the German Government's Advisory Council on Global Change recently
endorsed the policy proposed here. A positive lead from the UK
Government would mean that a coalition of Germany, France, and
the UK, together with Holland, Belgium Sweden and Denmark would
be well placed to shape an effective EU lead in the UK Presidency
at the end of 2005. The long-term framework of a Global Climate
Community will offer the market framework for industrial and technological
leadership and success in the post carbon age as well as an effective
response to the climate challenge.
6. The response to EATS by the market has
been encouraging in recent weeks. If the EU can succeed in fulfilling
its Kyoto commitments to reduce emissions, EATS will be a useful
model for a wider global system. Strong institutions to ensure
implementation and the rule of law in a Global Climate Community
are however essential if it is to work. At national level a few
of the least developed countries lack the inventories and institutional
capacity to join at once and will need help to enable them to
do so.
A CLIMATE COMMUNITY OF THE WILLING AND ABLE:
A FEASIBLE WAY FORWARD
1. LEADERSHIP
FOR A
LONG TERM
STRATEGY
UK leadership on climate in 2005 must combine
ambition and realism. The G8 and EU are very different types of
organisation. The EU acts. The G8 talks. The G8 will provide a
forum for putting pressure on the US administration to acknowledge
the reality of climate change, act to curb emissions and rejoin
the multilateral process in due course. For the US to switch from
undermining to encouraging the efforts of others would be helpful
in itself. Yet realism suggests that even a Kerry administration
will not implement Kyoto and will take time to rejoin the global
process. Efforts of persuasion must be kept up but the real pressure
on the US will come from climate change, oil prices, and the demonstration
by others that multilateral action works.
This means that the main UK ambition for 2005
must be to carry forward EU leadership in two practical ways:
first in implementing Kyoto—thus showing that a group of
major developed countries actually fulfils commitments to cut
emissions and establishing useful precedents for a wider global
deal through the EU Directive and EATS. There are encouraging
signs from the market, with a massive increase in carbon trading
in recent weeks. Many larger companies have absorbed carbon trading
as a management tool. The test of success will come in 2006 when
the Commission endeavours to tighten national targets on industry
and persuade national governments to fulfil wider commitments
on transport and society as a whole. If the EU succeeds in achieving
its reduction commitments, and links EATS successfully with other
Kyoto partners and US states with reduction programmes, it will
provide an encouraging model for the world.
The second and wider task for EU leadership
lies in defining the vision of a long-term solution, exploring
it with key developing countries, and taking the initiative with
key partners at COP11 in December 2005. The UK Presidency in the
second half of 2005 will be critical to this process. Following
on a key Council meeting in April 2005 it provides the opportunity
for the EU to formulate a long-term strategy by the end of 2005
with a view to negotiating its implementation by, at the latest,
the end of 2012. Under Kyoto, there is a requirement to negotiate
for a second commitment period. In our view this opportunity should
be seized to negotiate a long-term solution set in the framework
of the UNFCCC.
Acting within the framework of the UNFCCC, but
not waiting for the slowest, we urge the EU to join with key developing
countries in pioneering and establishing a Global Climate Community
of all willing states. Just as the EU itself was founded by a
pioneering group of six European states who formed a Coal and
Steel Community which has since deepened and widened to become
a Union of almost all Europe, so the urgent need for climate action
requires leadership by a vanguard group of states from North and
South creating a Global Community which all will ultimately join.
The new Community of the willing should apply
the Contraction and Convergence approach to reducing greenhouse
gas emissions—the concept developed by the Global Commons
Institute and advocated by the UK's Royal Commission on Environmental
Pollution, the German Government's Advisory Council on Global
Environmental Change (WBGU) and many others throughout the world.
The shape of such a Community was explored at
a conference, attended by participants from 18 countries, which
took place in November 2003 at Wilton Park, UK. Its conclusions
are set out in the attached paper (The Chanctonbury Initiative2
) by the two chairs, from North and South.(Excerpts from the statement
are in italics in the text that follows.)
The approach was endorsed once more at a conference
in Delhi, India on 9 October 2004.
2. THE CLIMATE
COMMUNITY PROPOSAL
Our proposal is that, in the absence of global
consensus for sufficient action, those countries, North and South,
with the necessary leadership, statesmanship and sense of responsibility
should form a Community for Global Climate Protection (CGCP) and
advance the implementation of the UNFCCC at an accelerated pace.
They should negotiate a Protocol of enhanced cooperation as
a bubble within the UNFCCC providing for:
Contraction of global GHG emissions to a
level that stabilises concentrations at an acceptable level (for
example a concentration target of 450 ppm of CO2 initially, subject
to adjustments in the light of scientific evidence).
Convergence of GHG emission entitlements
to equal per person distribution within a specified time frame
(say 30 to 40 years).
A global market in tradable emission entitlements
(drawing no doubt on EU experience and transferring resources
to poorer countries whose emissions quotas exceed their needs).
Attainment of sustainable livelihoods through
international cooperation, capacity building and transfers of
low carbon technologies and adequate and predictable enabling
resources.
The Community will require institutions that:
— ensure effective decisions on
policies and measures;
— respect democratic accountability
and the rule of law;
— manage the emissions market (securing
a stable currency and payments regime for emissions trade);
— monitor and ensure compliance
(with the necessary penalties);
— settle disputes fairly and ensure
adequate transfer of resources from rich to poor countries;
— take responsibility for relations
with other Parties, including association agreements as paths
to full membership.
The Community will need a Council of Ministers
and perhaps a smaller body representing regions and meeting more
frequently; a judicial mechanism; and, since it will have massive
implications for everyday life and economies within the Community,
a parliamentary element to ensure that its decisions are accountable,
equitable and effective. In short, it will need institutions that
can apply the rule of law. It would be set up within the framework
of the UNFCCC and draw on its secretariat and the agreements already
reached to the maximum possible extent. However, the shortcomings
of the present complex arrangements must be clearly recognised
and remedied, so that the new Protocol is binding, effective and
sufficiently democratic to carry with it communities and political
authorities across the world.
3. A LEAD BY
THE EU AND
KEY DEVELOPING
COUNTRIES: IS
IT POSSIBLE?
What are the prospects for European leadership
towards a Global Climate Community? Prime Minister Blair and President
Chirac have already jointly committed to a 60% reduction in emissions
by mid century. President Chirac has in the past supported an
eventual equal per capita arrangement. The German Government is
sympathetic to the thesis of the wbgu report. These core countries
have undertaken commitments which go a substantial way towards
those required by the GCC. We believe that a vigorous and tactful
lead by the UK, together with France, Germany and other north
European countries (Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium) and
a supportive European Parliament would have a good chance of developing
a common EU position on the lines described above.
A bold strategy based on clear political principles
will have the best chance of mobilising Europe's citizens as they
wake up to the reality of climate change. Just as Europe's existential
challenge of war and self-destruction demanded a radical initiative
of reconciliation in the mid twentieth century, so the existential
challenge to the world community posed by self-inflicted climate
change requires a new shared social and political vision which
heads of Government put to the people.
The project should not be launched as a purely
European initiative. Diplomatic dialogue with the developing world
is essential during the next twelve months so that it can be launched
as an initiative between the EU and key Southern countries, such
as India, key states in Latin America and the Africa Group. Europe
and developing country partners must be politically equal partners
in the initiative for a global climate community, because the
founding members will lay down the ground rules on which the community
develops. The founding principles of the new climate community
will be equity, solidarity and shared responsibility in addressing
the greatest challenge to threaten humanity.
Some Europeans question whether developing countries
would be prepared to commit in this way. Our organisation has
found strong support—in Delhi in our conference in October,
and in the East African Parliament for example. Asked in London
in June whether developing countries would respond positively
to a northern approach based on Contraction and Convergence. Ambassador
Raul Estrada, the Argentinean chair of COP and former chair of
the Kyoto conference, replied, "yes certainly".
Diplomatic and political dialogue to prepare
for this initiative must be started now, with a view to a joint
initiative by the EU and key developing countries by the time
of COP 11 in December 2005. The EU and its committed partners
from the South should then invite all states to negotiate who
are prepared to accept the core principles of contraction to an
adequate concentration target, convergence to equal per capita
emission entitlements and adequate community institutions and
resources to ensure implementation.
4. A FAST-TRACK
NEGOTIATION
The negotiation should be fast track. That is
to say it should not go at the leisurely pace of the climate talks
so far, with Ministers meeting once a year and 12 years elapsing
from the first global statement of intent at Rio to the effective
ratification of a first useful but modest step—Kyoto. Once
an agreement of principle is reached between a core group of countries
from both North and South, and all willing states who share these
principles have been invited to join, Prime Ministers should designate
plenipotentiaries to meet together for a non-stop negotiation
until agreement is reached, much as the original Rome Treaty was
negotiated by a group closeted in the Chateau de Val Duchesse,
or the International Criminal Court was negotiated by a sustained
negotiation in Rome.
Key subjects for negotiation will be:
— The concentration target and global
emission reduction scenarios.
— The date of convergence to equal
per capita entitlements.
— The consequent entitlement pathway
for each participating state.
— The way in which population is measured
and whether population entitlements should be frozen at a particular
date.
— The institutions, rules and framework
for implementation, including establishing and managing the global
emissions market.
— The common resources needed for all
this to take effect.
— Institutional provision must be made
in the new Protocol for adjustments of the target—which
may well be downward, given the continuing worrying signals about
an accelerating rise in ghg emissions and global temperatures.
We suggest that every five years Ministers be required to review
the targets in the light of a report by the IPCC or (if the IPCC
is unwilling to make policy recommendations) by a new Climate
Scientific Advisory Committee for the Global Climate Community.
These bodies could also advise change on their own initiative,
requesting a Ministerial decision.
5. WHY THE
CONTRACTION AND
CONVERGENCE APPROACH?
IS IT
NECESSARY? IS
IT FEASIBLE?
5.1 Precaution
Contracting emissions to meet a scientifically
based concentration target would meet the unarguable necessities
of the climate challenge.
5.2 Equity: mobilising the South:
Convergence to equal per person emission entitlements
is the clearest means of applying the principle of equity and
"differentiated responsibilities" laid down in the UNFCCC.
It is also politically necessary to mobilise the efforts of the
developing world. India's Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
said in December 2002 that "We don't believe that the ethical
principles of democracy could support any norm other than that
all citizens in the world should have equal rights to use ecological
resources." The view is widely shared in other developing
countries.
The Brazilian proposal (an alternative equity
driven concept) to base emission cuts on historical responsibility
provides no medium to long-term guide for the future and raises
invidious questions about the past. Brazil's concerns could be
met by an early convergence date which would ensure resource transfers
from developed states which buy surplus emission entitlements
from the south.
5.3 Economic Effectiveness
While an abrupt jump to equity would prove economically
damaging, the rigorous but gradual transition of contraction and
convergence will provide a cost-effective transformation. A principled
long-term framework will save negotiating time and cut complexity,
making clear the responsibilities of peoples, Governments and
the business world. Market signals will be provided to global
enterprise to invest long-term in the technologies and skills
of a lean post carbon economy. Power stations can last fifty years
and a new wave of global investment in power is pending. This
is why the group of major global financial institutions which
advises UNEP favours an early decision on the contraction and
convergence approach. Technological revolutions also take a long
time, like the Information Technology revolution which began with
the invention of the transistor in 1951 and is now bearing fruit.
The switch to the solar hydrogen economy also requires long-term
investment and innovation and "learning by doing", which
must start now. An equitable allocation of emissions rights is
more likely to last over the long term. It gives industry a predictable
framework to phase out fossil fuels, and will increase energy
security by reducing dependence on oil from the Middle East and
former Soviet Union and the likelihood of oil-based conflicts.
A well-regulated system of emissions trading would create flexibility
and economic incentives to cut emissions in a cost-effective way.
5.4 Flexibility Through the Regions
One criticism of c and c is that it fails to
allow for the varied condition and capabilities of member states—transport,
climate, different sources of renewable energy. Unfortunately
global negotiations based on these complexities sink under their
own weight and lose sight of principle.
Under C and C flexibility could be provided
by regional groupings or "bubbles" (eg in Africa or
south America) on the lines pioneered by the European Union under
Kyoto. In an African Group for example South Africa , with high
emissions , might make use of some surplus entitlements from Mozambique
in return for help with renewable energy Regional groupings of
this kind would also mobilise political will and provide a framework
for cooperation on clean energy, energy saving and adaptation
to unavoidable climate damage. In many parts of the world there
is a strong political impulse to regional unity—the African
Union, Mercosur, South Asian Cooperation. This needs to be mobilised
both to increase flexibility and to provide mutual help and peer
comparison in implementing rules.
5.6 The Key Role of Institutions
The Contraction and Convergence model requires
effective common institutions to: monitor and enforce compliance
and manage the emission currency and market—in short apply
the rule of law. It also requires effective institutions and inventories
at national level. So does every other scheme which promises the
major cuts in emissions required in developed countries and the
necessary limitation in emission increases in developing countries.
There is no evidence that voluntarism, even supplemented by major
financial funding, can make the necessary cuts in time. Massive
use of the tax weapon offers a possible theoretical alternative,
but may fail on equity, and brings up the same issues of implementation
as emission entitlements and market.
This brings home the critical importance
of the EU's current model. If it can enforce binding constraints
and, hence, a meaningful market in emissions, there will be a
benchmark and exemplary tools which can be used on a global scale.
Major developing countries such as India and Brazil or South Africa,
and many Asian states do have the institutions to implement commitments
and the rule of law, albeit imperfectly. Some African countries
or states in the former Soviet Union do not.
One general answer is that the rule of law
is anyway the concomitant of development. As states develop and
must transform and restrict their use of fossil energy they will
also become more capable of managing the change. But there is
also a real issue about how to deal with weaker and less developed
states.
Instead of a long-term framework, the so-called
"multistage" approach proposes to treat different categories
of countries in different ways, adding a number of the larger
developed countries in the second commitment period, and others,
say, in 2020. The trouble with this approach (in some of its forms)
is that it fails to provide the principled equity required by
developing countries or the long-term framework to drive investment
and innovation for the low carbon age. Our proposal for a Global
Climate Community of the willing and able would achieve these
two goals but allow a few of the poorest developing countries
to delay effective entry until they can handle it.
6. NOT
WAITING FOR
THE SLOWEST
6.1 Start with the Willing and Able; enlarge
the circle
To get swift and effective action a Global Climate
Community must start with a core group of willing democratic states
in North and South who are prepared to lead and attract others
by effective action. It must be hoped that their lead will attract
most of the states that have ratified Kyoto and the majority of
the G77 group of developing countries as founding members.
China is an essential part of any global climate
solution. An equitable solution on the lines of c and c offers
the best chance of drawing it in despite its breathtaking economic
growth and rising emissions. Its membership of the WTO has demonstrated
willingness to accept the rule of international law, but Its lack
of democracy means that it could not send members to a common
parliamentary assembly. A strong form of Association, involving
full commitment to emissions reductions and the full benefits
of the emissions market, might be appropriate at first.
Empty Chairs in the form of the appropriate
national emissions reduction paths would be defined for states
that do not join at first, with the UNFCCC providing an Association
Framework as a prelude to full membership.
As with the European Community some states will
be unable and some unwilling to join at first. The unable may
be a small number of the least developed states which do not have
the institutional capacity to join. Their per capita emissions
will be well below their emission entitlements so it will benefit
them to join as soon as possible. They will need help from developed
countries in the Global Community to develop institutional capacity
and valid inventories.
The USA is clearly the key unwilling state.
6.2 Action, not pleading, can mobilise America;
a goal for 2020
Just as Britain, then Europe's leading power,
was reluctant to share sovereignty in 1950s Europe, so the US,
today's global hyper power, is the most reluctant to make the
international commitments necessary to resolve the climate problem—a
reluctance already clear under the Clinton administration at the
Hague Ministerial Conference of the Parties in December 2000 and
before.
Yet a majority of Americans, according to polls,
believe their country should play its part in responding to the
climate crisis. In the absence of federal action several States
have are legislating to impose compulsory emission reductions.
The best way for Europe and the rest of the
world to help this strong body of opinion to persuade the US government
to commit is to push ahead with successful action. US states with
binding emission reduction programmes could be associated with
the Climate Community's emissions market. A climate community
involving developing countries through contraction and convergence
would meet the requirement of the Byrd Habeler amendment in the
US Senate which makes US action conditional on action by developing
countries. The benefits of markets in sustainable energy and emissions
within the Climate Community will be increasingly attractive to
US companies, who will put pressure on the US to join it. As climate
damages rise in the US, political pressure to join will also grow.
John Dutton, Dean Emeritus of Penn State's College of Earth and
Mineral Sciences, estimates that $2.7 trillion of the $10 trillion
US economy is susceptible to weather-related loss of revenue.
The goal should be for all states to become
full members, committed to their contraction and convergence paths,
by 2020.
7. COMPETITIVENESS
In Europe there are fears that free riders in
countries that do not join at first will benefit from cheap, dirty
manufacturing technology. We believe that the risks of competition
by dirty industries are outweighed by the huge industrial advantages
of technological and industrial leadership in the low to no carbon
age. US states with tough emission reduction programmes have already
found that they benefited competitively through energy and resource
saving efficiency. So have companies, such as Dupont and BP, which
have introduced tough internal disciplines on emissions and energy
saving.
Any overall competitive advantage of US firms
through using cheap dirty fuel is massively outweighed by the
competitive benefits of depreciation of the dollar, a depreciation
that is driven by the overall uncompetitivenes of the United States
as measured by its balance of payments deficit. A better measure
of overall competitiveness effects might be the impact of the
shift from carbon based energy systems on the overall rate of
productivity increase in an economy, Again there is much evidence
that, with gains through labour-saving productivity slowing down
in advanced economies, the biggest gains may lie in resource and
energy saving moves. Higher initial energy costs are a desirable
driver of improved economic efficiency. The great value of the
contraction and convergence approach, with its market in a shrinking
of emissions entitlements is that it gives all businesses a long-term
framework in which to transform their activities and make them
energy-competitive in the most cost effective way.
More legitimate short-term competitiveness concerns
about carbon-based dumping may be expressed by particular carbon-intensive
companies or sectors. Nonetheless demanding targets for emission
reduction require a rapid shift in energy utilisation both within
and between firms and the medium term benefits will go to early
movers. The wbgu has suggested that a Global Climate Community
retain the option of imposing anti-dumping duties on carbon intensive
free riders outside the community. This would clearly raise contentious
issues in the WTO, but the option should be retained, particularly
if certain states wilfully refuse to accept the obligations and
responsibilities of addressing climate change.
Aviation should be brought into the long-term
contraction and convergence framework. This is a sector where
public finance still plays a major part in R and D. There is a
need for a long term research programme at EU level to develop
carbon free fuel, perhaps funded by a tax on aircraft fuel or
landing charges. More broadly the UK Government should explore
the possibilities of public private partnerships to establish
the infrastructure for the hydrogen age.
8. HOW JOINED
UP IS
UK GOVERNMENT?
The Prime Minister's forceful statements, the
Government's 60% emission reduction target for mid-century, and
conferences planned—in Berlin this month and in Exeter early
next year—all show a strong determination at the heart of
Government to address the challenge of climate change. Implementation,
however, is another matter. Despite Defra's efforts, the UK's
initial targets for implementation of the EU Directive have been
disappointing, (like those set by several other European countries)
underlining the challenge to the Commission as it seeks to overcome
"competitiveness" anxieties in member states and persuade
all to implement their Kyoto commitments together.
As yet there is no agreed strategy for the period
beyond 2012. Some in Whitehall support the Contraction and Convergence
approach we suggest. Others do not. This debate is acceptable
while policy is being formed. But clarity will be needed by next
spring as the UK takes over its responsibilities in the G8 and
the EU shapes its strategy. Defra officials have a healthy continuing
partnership with their European colleagues. But as the need grows
to build a relationship with key developing countries, greater
input from the FCO and DfID , which have more contact with them
and a keen awareness of the equity factor which drives their policy,
could be valuable.
Some of the right forms exist. Secretary of
State Beckett established a contact group with India on her recent
visit. But will that contact be used to open up strategic and
political discussion of the kind of issues set out in this evidence
or will it focus primarily on useful but limited cooperation on
adaptation and technical matters? The proposal for a climate community
as a European initiative with the South is high politics, which
will require leadership from heads of Government and, in the UK,
a determined and unified effort by all Government departments
and wide public debate of the key issues at stake.
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