Greenhouse Development Rights

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The global deal on climate change has two main requirements. That it is guided by the latest science and that it is fair. Without fairness there will be no deal, as 192 countries need to agree and most of these countries are poor. We take a look at Oxfam International’s proposal for a fair deal that could break current deadlock in the talks, in an interview with Oxfam researcher Richard King . Like the proponents of Climate Debt and Greenhouse Development Rights, Oxfam says the rich world has a “double duty” to both make radical cuts at home and to pay for the poor world to adapt to climate change and develop in a low carbon way. Oxfam’s key recommendations are:

• Copenhagen must deliver a fair and adequate climate deal: one that keeps global warming as far below 2°C as possible, and that reflects the historical responsibility for emissions and the economic capability of developed countries
• Rich countries must agree binding individual country targets that cut greenhouse gas emissions to at least 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.
• A UN Fund should be established by raising $150bn per year as an absolute minimum from the sale, auction or levy of rich country emissions allowances (AAUs). $100bn of this would fund low-carbon development in poor countries and $50 would fund adaptation measures in poor countries
• Additional funds would be raised from fines if rich countries fail to meet their targets; and from the purchase of “premium reductions” which would replace the Clean Development Mechanism and ensure that poor countries rather than rich countries take advantage of the cheapest low-carbon options first

Is Oxfam’s idea of “premium reductions” a possible solution to the problems with the Clean Development Mechanism? We aksed Richard King to expand on this idea and how it relates to the CDM in the explanatory note which follows…

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The UN Climate Talks are at crisis point. Nothing on the table matches the scale of the challenge and corporate interests are rife. As the talks in Poznan come to an end, we take stock with three key protaganists: Kevin Smith (CarbonTradeWatch), Oliver Tickell (Kyoto2) and Tom Athanasiou (Greenhouse Development Rights).

Developments include:

• UNFCCC tenders a report on alternative frameworks
• 350 ppm CO2 target endorsed by Al Gore, AOSIS & the LDC country blocks
• Potsdam Institute shows how we can achieve the 350 ppm target
• Climate Justice Now! coalition grows in size from 20 to 160 organisations
• Carbon trading advances despite a crisis of credibility
• 142 organisations sign a statement against the World Bank’s involvement with climate funds
• The China+G77 block support climate funds being managed by UN
• Rich nations still failing to fulfill their commitments 16 years on
• Plans develop for a mass mobilisation in Copenhagen December 2009
• Could extending the scope of the Montreal Protocol and controling black soot be two effective ways forward outside the UNFCCC process?