While meeting the absolute carbon mitigation targets is essential, the least developed countries should not lose their right to development
The formal withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement not only came as a blow to global climate change efforts, it will also have a profound impact on the interests and development of all countries for years to come.
The twists and turns in the ongoing global climate change talks all come down to differing views on the nature of carbon emissions, which are, on the one hand, a driver of global climate change, and on the other hand, the product of economic development. For this reason, for any carbon emissions management scheme to work, it must contemplate reduction obligations on the one hand, and on the other, safeguard countries"" right to development.
Take carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of coal as an example. Developing countries such as China continue to rely on coal as the main source of energy. Carbon mitigation measures such as shutting down coal-fired power plants and installing high-efficiency stoves have already led to a significant drop in the overall emission intensity of thermal power plants.
Despite these developments, Western media outlets have yet to change their static view of the story of carbon emissions and growth in China. The Financial Times, for instance, quoted European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, when on the occasion of the annual World Economic Forum in Davos in late January said that China should establish a carbon-pricing scheme or face the carbon emissions border adjustment tax planned by the European Union.
The biggest difference in views comes down to defining each country""s rights and responsibilities within global efforts to reduce carbon emissions.
Carbon emissions released through necessary energy consumption to meet the basic needs of human survival can be viewed as a basic necessity. Once they reach a certain level, carbon emissions are regarded as a general necessity, similar to most commodities. At such emissions levels, relevant policy subsidies and conversion technologies can be applied to influence and change emission behaviors.
However, when carbon emissions are several-fold in per capita terms, they can be regarded as a luxury good. This refers to emissions released by traveling in private jets, yachts and the transportation of luxury goods. Such luxury-level emissions should be managed through imposing a carbon tax with the progressive rate, in order to reduce inequality in carbon emissions.
If we correlate per capita energy consumption in connection with the Human Development Index (HDI), a composite indicator that reflects economic, educational and health conditions, we see that 80 percent of the world""s population consume less than 100 gigajoule of energy per year. These are people at medium-to low-levels of HDI(in other words, HDI lower than 0.8). This also shows that some of the carbon dioxide emissions, as a byproduct of development, should be considered synonymous with the right to development.
While meeting the absolute carbon mitigation targets is essential in global climate change governance, it does not make sense to simply hold developing countries to the same carbon mitigation standards of developed countries.
A case in point is the Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg""s "school strike for climate" campaign. Her simplistic proposal of subjecting all developing countries to the emissions reduction standards of developed countries shows, on a fundamental level, complete ignorance of the unique attribute of carbon emissions, that they represent, up to a certain extent, the right to development.
If developed countries wish to impose more stringent emission standards on developing countries, and in particular, the least developed countries, the former should provide the latter with enough tax transfer subsidies as compensation to ensure the latter""s right to development (also known as the right to carbon emissions). This is the crux of global climate change talks going forward.
It is also important to distinguish between two concepts: carbon emissions from production and emissions associated with final consumption.
In many developing countries, a large part of the carbon emissions released correspond to processes of producing goods not for domestic consumption, but rather for exports. As final consumers of such goods, developed countries are paying only the cost of inputs, and have not done anything for the emissions for which they are ultimately responsible.
Nevertheless, the ongoing global climate change talks only see emissions as a result of production, which obfuscates the global assignment of carbon emission responsibilities. Current practices have failed to consider the economic and political interests of countries. As a result, it has been extremely difficult to come up with a unified and coherent framework for climate change talks. This also puts the fundamental principle in global climate change governance, namely the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities" at great risk at the negotiating table.
For global climate change governance to work, further clarification of carbon emissions reduction responsibilities is needed. Any future climate change governance scheme must take into account the reasonable amount of emissions released by the least developed countries in the process of meeting their basic development needs, as well as the fact that some of the emissions from developing countries are released in the process of producing goods that are ultimately consumed by developed countries. In light of these considerations, as consumers with shared emissions burdens and countries with historical responsibilities, developed countries should compensate developing countries by using resources in their emissions fund. This is a way to give back to the latter to compensate for the reduced space for development.
It is fair to say that only when there is clear definition of emissions responsibilities sharing can we have a systematic and solid basis for global climate change policymaking and mechanisms: Here, we are specifically talking about the global carbon tax and the global emissions trading scheme. Indeed, to get the design of either of these regimes right, highly complex political and economic issues must be addressed. To do this, we cannot rely on global climate change talks alone. Instead, countries, companies and even individuals must all take action to make it happen.