Andreas Oberheitmann: China and a new post-Kyoto regime of international climate governance based on cumulative per capita CO2-emission rights


The presentation may include the following topics:

 

  • Global warming and impacts on eco-systems and the economy
  • Trends of CO2-emissions and impact of climate change by 2050
  • Currently discussed post-Kyoto regimes of climate governance - advantages and disadvantages
  • China's role in a proposed new post-Kyoto climate regime based on per-capita cumulative emission rights

 

Outline Paper

To mitigate global climate change, on the Third Conference of the Parties (COP-3) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) in Kyoto, Japan between 1 and 10 December 1997, the OECD-countries and East and Central European countries in transition agreed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) by 5.2% between 2008 and 2012 compared to the year 1990.

In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its Fourth Assessment Report states that world temperatures according to the scenario assumptions set could rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 °C during the 21st century leading to sea level rises, more frequent warm spells, heat waves and heavy rainfall, and an increase in droughts, tropical cyclones and extreme high tides. To keep the increase of global mean temperature on a 2 °C level and not to risk extensive negative impacts of climate change, CO2-concentration in the Earth's atmosphere should be stabilised at least on a 400 parts per million (ppm) level. In 2007, the European Commission, in 2009, the G8 obliged itself to this 2 °C target. Currently, the average CO2-concentration is already about 383 ppm and in total both, industrialised and developing countries are still increasing their GHG-emissions. Between 1990 and 2007, China's CO2-emissions grew by 163%. This is much more than the world average of 35.1%. In 2007, China's CO2-emissions of 5.8 billion tons represented 19.9% of world emissions, India's 1.7 bn. tons 5.2% making the two countries the second largest resp. the fifth largest CO2-emitters in the world.

The Kyoto Protocol has to find a successor to go the next step of common but differentiated targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the period after 2012. However, until now, China is reluctant to accept quantitative GHG-emission reduction obligations towards the Kyoto Protocol and its successors, because it needs energy fuelling their economic growth. During the past centuries, the industrialised counties already consumed a lot of fossil energy and had an industrial development. This should be possible for the developing countries as well. On the basis of a forecast of China's CO2-emissions embedded in a global energy demand and greenhouse gas emission model until 2050, the paper aims at developing a suggestion for a post Kyoto climate regime on a per-capita emission basis taking the cumulated CO2-emissions in the past into account and estimating the impact of different economic growth paths on the regional distribution of greenhouse gas emission rights.