Contraction and Convergence News

Aubrey,

Of course. Please add me to the list.

Good luck,

David Strahan

Another approach that is attracting support among policymakers intemationally is known as contraction and convergence, which although designed principally to tackle climate change could also be usefully deployed against oil depletion. Contract and Converge is based on the idea that the only safe and fair way to apportion the right to pollute the world can be on an equal per capita basis. A global agreement would establish scientifically the upper limit of atmospheric carbon concentration that can be tolerated, divide the ‘acceptable’ emissions between the world's population and set a date by which all countries have to hit this per capita level. After a time, each country’s cap would be fixed regardless of its subsequent population growth. This overall approach implies that some developing nations such as China could continue to increase their emissions for a time, while the industrialized nations would have to begin steep cuts immediately, again probably using TEQs. The biggest polluters such as America would obviously have to cut hardest, but even countries such as Britain would have to make enormous reductions. If the agreement were to stabilize atmospheric C02 at 550 parts per million - which many scientists regard as dangerously high - UK emissions would have to fall from the current ten tonnes per person per year to less than four tonnes by 2050. Four tonnes is the amount generated by one person taking a round trip by plane between London and New York. For this reason, despite the undoubted fairness of the idea, it would be just as hardto secure agreement around contract and converge as the Rimini Protocol.
Last Oil Shock David Strahan

David Strahan is an award-winning investigative journalist and documentary film-maker who specializes business and energy. For a decade he reported and produced extensively for the BBC’s Money Programme and Horizon strands. He is also the author of The Last Oil Shock: A Survival Guide to the Imminent Extinction of Petroleum Man, published by John Murray, and continues to write, broadcast and consult on energy. He is a trustee of the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre, fellow of the RSA, and an honorary researcher at the Aon Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre.