When governments meet in Bali to discuss a future climate treaty, one question will be central: who is to blame for global warming?
 | The Buck Stops...Over ThereU.S. Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice listens as UNFCCC head Yvo de Boer addresses a climate meeting in Washington DC (Photo: Reuters) |
In November 2006, the world’s largest container ship, the Emma Maersk, delivered 11,000 containers of Christmas goods from China to the UK, sparking off an intense debate. Was the CO2 emitted from the manufacture and shipping of all those goods the responsibility of China or the UK? Who should own up to the ship’s gigantic carbon footprint: Chinese exporters and manufacturers or British importers and consumers?
In an increasingly global economy, counting carbon emissions as exclusively Chinese or British is becoming more complicated. It is this very question of responsibility that will hang over the UN Bali climate summit and later negotiations over a new treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
 | Picture Gallery (click the image to start)A round-up of the key issues on the table at the UN Bali climate talks (Photo: Reuters) |
In the West, many believe the battle for tackling climate change will be won or lost in Asia. Any successor climate to the Kyoto Protocol, they say, will have to involve not only the United States, but also China and India, two of the fastest-growing economies in the world.
“There is no point in screwing British industry with tough emissions targets when whatever can be achieved in this country is going to be minute compared with additional emissions coming each year out of China,” says Peter Patterson, a policy expert at the UK’s Institute for Directors.
Historical responsibility
But the question of how to get the world’s biggest polluters to reign in their emissions could prove to be the biggest obstacle in front of a new climate treaty. Emerging giants like China and India insist on their right to develop - and to pollute – without restrictions. On the other hand, the United States rejects mandatory emissions cuts, because its politicians and businesses fear competitive disadvantages on the international market.
“The U.S. position – expecting China and India to adapt at the same pace – is not workable and not fair,” says Jim Watson of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. “It is industrialized countries that should take the lead.”
Why? Richer countries continue to emit far more greenhouse gases per capita than poorer countries, because of their carbon-intensive lifestyles. Meanwhile, those most vulnerable to the effects of climate change— rising sea levels, increasing temperatures, greater storm intensity — live in poorer countries.
Industrialized countries also have the wealth and capacity to develop new technologies and absorb the economic impact of a higher price for carbon. They can also pass on their technological knowledge to poorer countries to help them develop their economies in more environmentally friendly ways. Historically, richer countries account for the overwhelming bulk of CO2 in the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial age.
The World Resources Institute calculates that during the 20th century, industrialized countries, home to 20 percent of the world’s population, were responsible for about 63 percent of net carbon emissions. This responsibility is also reflected in the Kyoto Protocol, which obliges 36 industrial nations to cut emissions by at least five percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
Future Responsibility
But hold on a minute. In 2007, China replaced the United States as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. By 2015, India will become number three. Yet these countries, and all other developing nations that signed the Kyoto Protocol, are exempt from making any emissions cuts. Has this exemption encouraged those countries to pollute with impunity?
This has been the central argument of U.S. and Australian politicians in refusing to ratify Kyoto. The climate agreement, they say, represents unacceptable economic costs for them, and a free ride for the increasingly competitive Chinese and Indian economies. Incoming Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, however, announced that Australia would soon ratify Kyoto, leaving the U.S. as the lone outsider. There is no indication, however, that the changing Australian stance will influence U.S. President George W. Bush, who still contends that Kyoto is a bad deal.
“Now there is a lot of talk, but action is limited and mealy-mouthed,” says Peter Patterson. “There is an element of everyone holding back and saying: ‘I’m not doing anything if you are not doing anything.’”
The problem is essentially the temporal gap between cause and effect: Climate change is a long-term process. Effects of actions taken now will not be felt for many years because of the time lag in the earth’s atmosphere. The costs of reducing emissions, however, will be felt immediately in company accounts, share prices, wages, and, ultimately, the ballot box.
“There is a fundamental asymmetry between the short-term costs of reducing emissions and the long-term aims,” says Jim Watson. “There is a temporal mismatch. There needs to be greater connection between global trade discussions and global environment discussions.”
Squaring that circle is the task of the delegates in Bali, who must establish a long-term global regulatory framework that will engage non-Kyoto participants such as the U.S., China, and India. Countries will have to think beyond their immediate national interest, for greenhouse gases and climate change are the most globalized commodities there are.
editor: James Tulloch
publishing date: December 4, 2007
