From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

FROM POVERTY TO POWERcap the aspirations for growth of rich or poor countries. The earliereffective action is taken, the less costly it will be.’Discussions to date have often degenerated into an unproductivestand-off in which rich countries argue that fast-growing nations suchas China and India need to accept curbs on their emissions while makingonly feeble progress in doing so themselves, whereas the poorer, morepopulous countries point to their much lower emissions per capitaand the historic culpability of the rich countries in squandering theplanet’s carbon tolerance levels, and stress the developmental needfor growth.Bridging this divide is clearly a pre-condition for progress towardsthe level of global cuts necessary, as well as an indicator of the extent towhich any future climate regime is perceived to deliver justice.Requiring poor countries and communities to forego prosperity inorder to save the planet is tantamount to asking them to pick up thetab for centuries of pollution by developed countries. It is both unjustand unlikely to work. The question of how contributions to globalmitigation efforts should be shared across countries lies at the heart ofpost-2012 negotiations.While the options for slicing up global emissions obligations aremany, the ethical principles that must underpin any viable burdensharingagreement boil down to:• Equal emissions per capita: No one person has a greaterright to the global atmosphere’s carbon cycling capacity thatanyone else.• Responsibility and capability: People and countries musttake action on the basis of their responsibility for causing theproblem (historical emissions) and their capability to assist.• The right to development: The current level of poverty in acountry must be taken into account in determining itsobligation to pay towards mitigation and adaptation.Critically, the burden-sharing framework embodied in the post-2012climate regime must be defensible according to objective applicationof these principles and must satisfy more subjective ideas of justiceand fairness. One approach that does this is captured in theGreenhouse Development Rights framework, in which national412