29 August 2013 - The London Accord's prestigious 'Long Finance' programme picks up on CBAT Some more reactions to CBAT here 28 August 2013 - "Wise owl shall comfort the rabbit." Very touching pictures at the David Hollington exhibition 28 August 2013 - "So after 50 years of campaigning, why bother to go on?" Islands of wonder Climate & Health Council I am now 71 years old. When I was 21, I read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, and when 31, The limits to Growth. Many subsequent books have reinforced the need for humanity to use nature’s bountiful resources more frugally, not erode them, and to share these common goods more equally, so that all can benefit from them. Health professionals have added to this ethical imperative. We point out that societies in which resources are shared more rather than less equally, and in which resource use does not transgress natural limits, are an essential prerequisite for global good health. Working with many people in many organisations, I have endeavoured to move our societies toward this healthy state. But despite the unequivocal evidence and the unremitting work and actions by inspirational people of all ages and races, we have not reversed the heavy footed way we trample on our environment, nor the inequitable distribution of resources. If anything, the trampling is heavier, the inequity greater. So after 50 years of campaigning, why bother to go on? Three strands of thinking inspire me to continuing effort. The first is Ghandi reminding me that it is the action, not the fruit of the action that’s important .We have to do the right thing. It may not be in our time, it may not be in our power that there will be any fruit. But that doesn’t mean we stop doing the right thing. We may never know what results come from our actions. But if we do nothing, there will be no results. The second relates to the fragility of civilisation. Civilisation is humanity’s best attempt to promote the good and mitigate the bad. Promoting the good always seems more of a struggle than going along with the bad. Progress is never even, and advances may easily be reversed. Like life itself, the good in civilization lives far from equilibrium, and needs all our energy to maintain it. Doing nothing to promote the good drains it from our societies. The third is the islands of wonder which abound. Whether an idea, such as Aubrey Meyer's Contraction and Convergence; an action, such as Wangari Maathai’s green movement; Vandana Shivas seed freedom movement; the gross national happiness index guiding the economy of Bhutan; a film such as an inconvenient truth; a leader such as Desmond Tutu; a brave dissident such as Edward Snowden; or the everyday actions of hundreds of millions of people asserting the need for a cleaner fairer world, all hearten and sustain me. At the core of each of these islands of wonder is the recognition that projects we engage in must give synergistic social and environmental gain as well as being more financially advantageous to the poor rather than the wealthy. Creating these virtuous cycles of activity at all levels of society is our immediate task. These islands of wonder may coalesce to form continents of wonder in which humanity can truly flourish. They may not , but if we do nothing they surely will not. If We Do Nothing There Will Be No Results Dr Robin Stott, Co-Chair, Climate and Health Council 27 August 2013 - "I have a dream." Tomorrow President Obama commemorates MLK & is challenged to make that dream a reality. Martin Luther King's heartfelt words “I have a Dream” were uttered at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on the 28th August 1963. Original Document HERE & text only HERE Abraham Lincoln ended slavery arguing that all men are equal under the law and recalling Jefferson words in the US Declaration of Independence, all three men said, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” This value of equality reverberates round the world to this day and tomorrow, President Obama commemorates it and faces the challenge of making that dream a reality. The US President has now also committed himself to avoiding dangerous rates of global climate change. Here, the limit we need to observe is in the objective of the 1992 UN Climate Convention: - stable and safe greenhouse gas concentration in the global atmosphere. Lest we perish, compliance has to be observed and equality under that limit is the principled and many argue the only way of resolving the over-consumption and the under-consumption that has caused us already to exceed it. This makes climate change and UNFCCC-compliance the ultimate challenge of inter-dependence. It is dangerous because unresolved it become a recipe for conflict that puts us all in the double-jeopardy of being vulnerable to it as well as to each other. To deal with this, since 1992 the Global Commons Institute (GCI) has been advocating UNFCCC Compliance in an 'ordered framework’ that is founded on the principles of inter-dependence and equality under that limit. It is called ‘Contraction and Convergence’ [C&C]. C&C embodies the spirit of Nelson Mandela as it is a way of achieving 'Climate Justice without Vengeance', where the rights to future greenhouse gas emissions are shared by everyone equally, but under that UNFCCC limit. Agreement to enact C&C globally helps fulfill the vision of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. King said, "The Arc of the Moral Universe is a Long One but it bends Toward Justice". In 1985 Michael Jackson’s “We are the World” brought together a wide array of famous & leading American 'black, brown & white faces & voices' communicating that Message to the World. In that spirit, the C&C proposal is again before the UN with much support. As the consequences of failure to achieve compliance with the objective on the UN Climate treaty are now also self-evident, GCI is also launching a Carbon Budget Analysis Tool (CBAT) to help calculate that limit. This too is starting to evoke critical support. The 'wider context' of what Humanity is 'living through & experiencing' at present can be 'taken note of & enjoyed' here 27 August 2013 - "New CBAT model - great value to international negotiators." Don Brown, Widener University Law School USA Dear Aubrey I believe the new CBAT model should be of great value both to international climate negotiators, governments and NGOs engaged in international climate negotiations. It allows those interested in developing a global solution to visualize the otherwise complex interactions of international carbon budgets, atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, and emissions reductions commitments. Although I am personally familiar with the relationships between the variables represented in the CBAT, I found having the ability to change inputs to the model through the use of the CBAT made me understand at a deeper level the policy choices facing the international community. The CBAT model should be very useful for all who hope to understand future climate change policy options and the scale of the global challenge facing the world. I have been engaged in climate change policy options since the 1992 Earth Summit at which the United Nations Framework Convention was opened for signature and have attended most of the Conference of Parties under the UNFCCC since then. Yet even though I have significant experience and knowledge about future climate change policy challenges, the CBAT model helped me visualize the significance of certain policy options facing the world. CBAT Graphic User Interface [GUI] I fully support efforts to make contraction and convergence (C&C) the central framework for allocating national greenhouse gas emissions in the years ahead. C&C is also flexible enough to deal with several equity issues raised by others. Donald A. Brown Scholar In Residence, Sustainability Ethics and Law, Widener University School of Law Further responses to CBAT here Climate Change Ethics - Don Brown In addition to these principles, over the last decade, several new emissions reductions frameworks have evolved, which have received widespread attention in the international community, particularly among non-government organizations participating in international climate change negotiations. These include allocation formulas called, "Contraction and Convergence" (C&C) and the "Greenhouse Development Rights" (GDR) framework. C&C was first proposed in 1990 by the London-based non-governmental Global Commons Institute (GCI 2010) (see Figure 6.3). Basically, C&C is not a prescription per se, but rather a way of demonstrating how a global prescription could be negotiated and organized in a way that ultimately levels off on the basis of equal per capita emissions (Meyer 2000) . Implementing C&C requires two steps. As a first step, countries must agree on a long-term global stabilization level for atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations as discussed in the last chapter. Once this is done a global greenhouse gas emissions budget can be calculated that would determine how many tonnes of greenhouse gases can be released into the atmosphere that will allow atmospheric concentrations to be stabilized. As a second step, countries need to negotiate a convergence date. That is, a date at which time the emissions allocated to each country should converge on equal per capita entitlements. During the transition period, a yearly global carbon budget is devised, which contracts gradually over time as the per capita entitlements of developed countries decrease while those of most developing countries increase. C&C would allow nations to achieve their per capita-based targets through trading from countries having excess allotments. And so, under C&C, nations eventually receive binding emissions reductions allocations that are distributed on the basis of equal per capita emissions for all humans. How to calculate greenhouse gas allocations between nations has always raised tensions between the developed and developing countries; the latter arguing that they have a right and need for economic development to help poor people rise above grinding poverty. In fact, international climate negotiation has been plagued by global North versus South conflicts. Poor developing nations have been deeply worried that climate change policies will exacerbate existing injustices between rich and poor nations if the poor countries' ability to develop economically is thwarted by limits on greenhouse gas emissions. The second allocation formula based upon equitable considerations is the GDR framework; a framework specifically designed to assure that poor people are not unfairly constrained in a world in which the global economy is constrained by limits on carbon (Baer et al. 2008). GDR begins with an ambitious emissions reduction pathway which, geared to the latest alarming evidence, has a relatively high probability of holding global warming below 2°C (Baer et al. 2008). GDR specifies that individuals whose income is below $7,500 are given the right to development. Under GDR these, by definition, poor individuals are not expected to help to pay the costs of the climate transition. Yet, individuals with incomes above the development threshold- by stipulation of GDR, the global consuming class- are thought of as having realized their right to development (Baer et al. 2008). Because of this, under GDR, they must shoulder the responsibility of curbing global carbon and the costs of adaptation from unavoidable climate change and compensation for climate damages (Baer et al. 2008). Although some governments and organizations have endorsed either C&C or GDR, these frameworks have not yet been seriously considered by governments as the basis for setting emissions reductions commitments during recent climate change negotiations despite high levels of interest in these two approaches among non-government organizations. In fact, most nations have continued to avoid linking their commitments to greenhouse gas emissions reduction to levels that take equity into account. Contraction and Convergence An equal per capita allocation, the ultimate goal of C&C, would be consistent with principles of justice because: (a) it treats all individuals as equals and, therefore, is consistent with theories of distributive justice, (b) it would implement the ethical maxim that all people should have equal rights to use global commons, (c) it would not be inconsistent with the widely accepted polluterpays principle, except perhaps with historical emissions, and (d) it could recognize the need of developing countries to increase their emissions to meet the basic needs of their citizens by negotiating when the convergence date would need to be achieved. Before allocating any carbon budget- a budget necessary to achieve a safe global atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases on the basis of equal per capita allocations- a case can be made that per capita emission levels should be adjusted to consider historical cumulative emissions. C&C has been criticized on the basis of its failure to deal effectively with historical emissions; a feature of C&C that could mean poor nations have insufficient levels of greenhouse gas emissions to allow them to use fossil fuels to economically grow out of poverty. Proponents of C&C have proposed some adjustments to C&C to deal with this limitation, including adjustments to the date of convergence and increased funding for adaptation to deal with this problem. And so as adjusted, C&C satisfies ethical scrutiny and can be seen as a way of operationalizing the meaning of equity under the UNFCCC. Greenhouse Development Rights The GDR framework discussed above also satisfies the minimum ethical criteria for allocating targets for national greenhouse gas emissions in that differences between national targets are based upon ethically relevant criteria, including basic needs of poor nations for economic development, the economic capacity of rich countries to invest in greenhouse gas-friendly technologies, and historical emissions considerations. Yet GDR is vulnerable to the criticism that the criteria it follows for determining economic prosperity levels- and, therefore, emission reduction obligations (for example the proposed $7,500 economic prosperity level that exempts some below it from emissions reduction targets)- are so arbitrary as to raise questions of distributive justice. Others have criticized GDR on the basis of its attempts to solve not only climate change, but also inequitable economic development. In so doing, GDR conflates two problems in such a way that it makes political agreement very unlikely (Kraus 2009). More specifically, Kraus argues that: In order to make GDRs fully operational, nations need to agree upon a number of matters including the emergency emissions trajectory, the precise level of the development threshold, the year when responsibility starts, the formula to calculate the RCI, and the respective weights of capacity and responsibility .... This reduces the transparency of the GDRs concept and significantly increases the necessary amount of data. Compared to GDRs, C&C has a higher degree of institutional feasibility. Due to its simplicity, C&C only requires data about emissions and population numbers of all nations. (Kraus 2009) Because of the increased complexity of negotiations that would be required to implement GDR, Kraus believes it is not politically feasible. Ethics would not support a formula that is almost impossible to implement. Of course, proponents of GDR deny that complexities of GDR create practical barriers to its adoption and implementation. And so GDR passes ethical scrutiny, although some practical problems need to be answered. Reviews Climate change raises some of the most profound ethical issues of our time. And yet, for thirty years our policy responses have evaded comprehensive ethical analysis. This book puts an end to this 'grave and unjust omission. However, the outstanding contribution of this book is its explanation of how ethical considerations can bring moral responsibility to the forefront of climate policy and action. Prue Taylor, University of Auckland, New Zealand Don Brown navigates the troubled waters of climate change denial. He deconstructs the cynical efforts by vested interests to pollute the public discourse by means of a climate change disinformation campaign. Brown also makes a compelling argument that limiting carbon emissions and mitigating climate change is the ethical imperative of our time. Michael Mann, Pennsylvania State University, USA In this fascinating book, Donald A. Brown draws on his vast experience to explore one of the great ethical issues of our time, and provides recommendations about how to bring ethical issues into the formulation of global warming policy responses. Richard Alley, Pennsylvania State University, USA Climate change is now the biggest challenge faced by humanity worldwide and ethics is the crucial missing component to the debate. The climate change threat is caused by the wealthiest of the world's population putting the most vulnerable at risk. The ethical dimension of climate change is therefore crucial, as the victims can only hope that those responsible for climate change will appreciate their obligation to the rest of the world and reduce their emissions accordingly. This book examines why a thirty-five-year discussion of human-induced warming has failed to acknowledge fundamental ethical concerns, and subjects climate change's most important policy questions to ethical analysis. Climate change is a global problem that requires a global solution, and given that many nations refuse participation due to perceived inequities of an international solution, this book explains why ensuring that nations, sub-national governments, organizations, businesses and individuals acknowledge and respond to their ethical obligations is both an ethical and practical mandate. The book examines the reasons why ethical principles have failed to gain traction in policy formation and recommends specific strategies to ensure that climate change policies are consistent with ethical principles. It is the first book of its kind to go beyond a mere account of relevant ethical questions to offer a pragmatic guide to how to make ethical principles relevant and integral to the world's response to climate change. Written by Donald A. Brown, a leading voice in the field, it should be of interest to policy makers, and those studying environmental policy, climate change policy, international relations, environmental ethics and philosophy. Donald A. Brown is Scholar in Residence on Sustainability Ethics and Law at Widener University School of Law, USA. Contraction & Convergence and Greenhouse Development Rights: A Critical Comparison Between Two Salient Climate-Ethical Concepts Taken together, the above suggests that GDRs performs worse against all of the four criteria. In its present form, GDRs is also inappropriate to implement the right to development and to solve the development crisis. Compared to GDRs, C&C is easier to negotiate and to implement, C&C has a higher potential to lead to a global climate compromise, C&C rests on less contestable ethical foundations, and has a higher potential to stimulate changes in public attitudes and awareness. All in all, C&C is the preferable concept. However, with a view to tackling the climate challenge, C&C should put more emphasis on the fact that in the future for many countries the conventional development path based on increasing economic growth and the consumption of fossil fuels will no longer be feasible. Climate change largely challenges prevalent international institutional control mechanisms. To overcome the climate crisis, it is therefore the more important to create a global atmosphere of trust as a basis for comprehensive cooperation across social, economic, and cultural divides. The image of a divided world which is in the centre of the GDRs Framework (e.g. Baer et al. 2008:91) may aptly describe reality but it may not show a vision of how to bridge the gap between rich and poor, North and South. C&C, however, evokes the image of a global community in which, under growing pressure, people in poor and rich countries alike act together to bring about a more careful and sustainable management of the atmosphere. However, a global climate partnership based on C&C will only be achieved once the obligation of rich countries to assist adaptation in poorer countries is duly recognized. This is not a question of charity but a question of justice and fairness. Climate Ethics Critical Analysis of Climate Science and Policy Rock Ethics Institute, Pennsylvania State University Because of the long phase-in time that would be required to move toward per capita allocations in the developed nations. those developing nations pushing for per capita allocation have proposed an approach usually re ferred to as 'contraction and convergence’. Contraction and convergence means an allocation that would allow the large emitter nations long enough time, perhaps thirty or forty years to contract their emissions through the replacement of greenhouse gas-emitting capital and infrastructure and eventually converge on a uniform per capita allocation. Support for contraction and convergence has been building around the world with the European Parliament in 1998 recently calling for its adoption with a 90 percent majority. A per capita allocation would be just for the following reasons: It treats all individuals as equals and therefore is consistent with theories of distributive justice It would implement the ethical maxim that all people should have equal rights to use a global commons. It would implement the widely accepted polluter-pays principle American heat: ethical problems with the United States’ response to global warming Donald A. Brown. Since most nations entered the Copenhagen and Cancun negotiations as if national interest rather than global responsibility to others was an adequate basis for national climate change policies, the commitments made under the Copenhagen Accord and Cancun agreements fail to satisfy equity criteria. In fact, in the lead-up to Copenhagen, most of the justifications for national commitments that had been announced by countries to reduce their emissions were exclusively focused on whether they met global goals to reduce GHG emissions unadjusted by equity considerations. There have been several proposals discussed by the international community about second commitment period frameworks that would expressly incorporate equity into future ghg emissions reductions pathways. Two such frameworks are known as “Contraction and Convergence” (C&C, 2009) and “Greenhouse Development Rights” (GDR) (Bear and Athanasiou, 2009) frameworks. In the lead-up to Copenhagen, all major GHG emitting nations ignored the C&C or GDR frameworks or any other comprehensive framework that took equity into account. In fact, the Copenhagen Accord and the Cancun agreements allowed each nation to identify its emissions reduction commitment based upon voluntary national considerations without regard to equity. An Ethical Analysis of the Cancun Climate Negotiations Outcome Donald A. Brown Associate Professor, Environmental Ethics, Science, and Law, Penn State University Associate Professor, Environmental Ethics, Science, And Law, Penn State 26 August 2013 - "Happy to endorse the C&C submission." David Hirst Inventor, Entrepreneur, Consultant. Aubrey Yes I am happy to endorse the C&C submission. Good luck with it David Contraction and Convergence is the set of concepts proposed by Aubrey Meyer and the Global Commons Institute to tackle the critical planetary (and so global) problems of Climate Change. I commend the site to you, and, most specifically, the short definition statement David Hirst Inventor Entreprenuer Consultant 26 August 2013 - "I robustly defend findings on rates of Arctic melt." Dr Peter Wadhams Cambridge University Research The 24 July news story about the potential cost of Arctic methane release has provoked widespread coverage, including a critique in the Washington Post. Here, Professor Peter Wadhams responds to some of the comments that were made. The 25 July post by Jason Samenow on the global economic impacts of methane emissions in the East Siberian Sea portrays the findings of our research as misleading, a statement with which I strongly disagree. Our work is based on a prediction of the magnitude and timing of methane emissions from the thawing of Arctic offshore permafrost by a scientist who has done extensive field work on this part of the ocean bed and is a globally recognized expert. We calculated the financial implications of these emissions for the world economy over a century and also considered  the effect of the emissions on increasing overall global warming, obtaining a 0.6C figure by 2040. We rightly consider these to be substantial figures, which deserve wide circulation among climate scientists, and Nature and its referees agreed with us. In our analysis we showed that the overall cost of a given volume of methane release is relatively insensitive to the rate of release or, within limits, its timing, BUT that the cost is roughly proportional to the overall volume of release. Thus, even if you worked with a different projection by a lesser qualified scientist than Shakhova, and revised down the figure and scale of the 60 trillion dollars accordingly, I suspect the cost will still be substantial – and that is one clear finding: The planetary cost of Arctic warming far outstrips any possible benefits to shipping or natural resource exploration. In support of its skepticism about methane emissions the article quoted authors who wrote before the enormous retreat of summer Arctic sea ice and its oceanographic effects became so evident. The mechanism which is causing the observed mass of rising methane plumes in the East Siberian Sea is itself unprecedented and the scientists who dismissed the idea of extensive methane release in earlier research were simply not aware of the new mechanism that is causing it. What is happening is that the summer sea ice now retreats so far, and for so long each summer, that there is a substantial ice-free season over the Siberian shelf, sufficient for solar irradiance to warm the surface water by a significant amount – up to 7C according to satellite data. That warming extends the 50 m or so to the seabed because we are dealing with only a polar surface water layer here (over the shelves the Arctic Ocean structure is one-layer rather than three layers)  and the surface warming is mixed down by wave-induced mixing because the extensive open water permits large fetches.  So long as some ice persisted on the shelf, the water mass was held to about 0C in summer because any further heat content in the water column was used for melting the ice underside. But once the ice disappears, as it has done, the temperature of the water can rise significantly, and the heat content reaching the seabed can melt the frozen sediments at a rate that was never before possible. The 2008 US Climate Change Science Program report  needs to be seen in this context. Equally, David Archer’s 2010 comment that “so far no one has seen or proposed a mechanism to make that (a catastrophic methane release) happen” was not informed by the Semiletov/Shakhova field experiments and the mechanism described above. Carolyn Rupple’s review of 2011 equally does not reflect awareness of this new mechanism. Therefore I robustly defend our research and commentary, and hope that rather than dismiss the substantial risk such a methane release poses, the response might be to support more intensive research on this problem. See more here 26 August 2013 - "Modellers excluded permafrost feedback from IPCC AR5." UNEP Policy Implications of Permafrost Melt This report from UNEP "Policy Implications of Warming Permafrost" from November 2012 includes the following extraordinary statement about the omission of feedbacks from the Climate-Models use for IPCC 5th Assessement Report: - "The effect of the permafrost carbon feedback on climate has not been included in the IPCC Assessment Reports. None of the climate projections in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report include the permafrost carbon feedback (IPCC 2007). Participating modeling teams have completed their climate projections in support of the Fifth Assessment Report, but these projections do not include the permafrost carbon feedback. Consequently, the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, due for release in stages between September 2013 and October 2014, will not include the potential effects of the permafrost carbon feedback on global climate." UNEP REPORT ON FEEDBACK OMISSION FROM IPCC AR5 FORWARD TO INFO POINTS on RATES of ARCTIC MELT   25 August 2013 - "C&C could usher in a new era of global justice." Local Sustainable Homes, Chris Bird "What is Contraction and Convergence, and what does it mean for housing? The Global Commons Institute proposes a framework for a global reduction in carbon emissions while simultaneously moving towards greater equity and social justice. The framework known as Contraction and Convergence consists of reducing overall emissions of greenhouse gases to a safe level [contraction], while every country brings emissions per capita to a level that is equal for all countries [convergence]. In Britain, this means reducing our current per capita emissions of about 12 tonnes down to i.5 tonnes. Some countries with low per capita emissions might initially be entitled to a rise in their carbon rations and could sell their surplus to richer countries. Once all countries achieve an equal level of emissions - 2030 is the target suggested by the Global Commons Institute - then the carbon ration for all countries would continue to fall to an agreed safe level. Contraction and Convergence represents a break from the vicious cycle where affluent industrialized word reaps benefits from fossil fuels while the developing world pays a disproportionate share of the costs in terms of climate change. In its place stands a virtuous circle where everyone benefits from reducing fossil fuel dependency. Based as it is on a philosophy of equal shares within a global limit, the framework could usher in a new era of global justice." Local Sustainable Homes: How to Make Them Happen in Your Community Chris Bird 22 August 2013 - John Pilger's film about the Chagos people evicted from Diego Garcia by the UK for the US The utterly sickening thing about this long and heartbreaking story [around 1960 until the present] is that the UK Government ultimately justified the 'necessity of eviction' saying the Chagossians could not be allowed to return to these tropical islands 'because of the threat of sea-level rise' . . . . [monumental hypocrisy] . . . as the film shows, FCO Minister Bill Rammell delivered this judgement. Bill Rammell is someone with whom Dr Richard Lawson of the UK Green Party made sustained and tactful efforts with C&C in a corresponence lasting many years. As Lawson wrote at the end: - "Leadership has two aspects - practical and conceptual. The UK is actually lagging behind our European partners in many fields of environmental practice, (although I am sure that you will be able to point out some leads). So the UK is not in a good position to give conceptual leadership." 22 August 2013 - NYT reports on IPCC AR5 "We've gone from 90 to 95% certain GW is human caused." [!] "The IPCC has found with near certainty that human activity is the cause of most of the temperature increases of recent decades, and warns that sea levels could conceivably rise by more than three feet by the end of the century if emissions continue at a runaway pace." “I think the IPCC has once again erred on the side of understating the degree of the likely changes,” Dr. Mann said. “I think that the IPCC has a tradition of being very conservative,” Dr. Field said. New York Times on IPCC AR5 Leaked Final Draft In fact IPCC AR5 has simply gone from the '90% confidence level' in AR4 [2007] to a '95% confidence level' in AR5 [2013] that global warming is largely human caused. This the consensus of the wagons circled to deal with 'doubters' outside it and not the likes of Dr Manne. NYT writes, "Some climate doubters challenge the idea that the earth is warming at all; others concede that it is, but deny human responsibility; still others acknowledge a human role, but assert that the warming is likely to be limited and the impacts manageable." The reality is however, that in the light of most feedback effects still being omitted from the models, projections that don't omit these show that human fossil fuel emissions have just 'pulled the trigger' as uncontrollable feedback emissions are coming into play which take the future to a wholly different place, about which we can do nothing except try and survive the conflicts that will come with it. Here is the IPCC AR5 'Summary for Policy Makers'. Feedbacks are just talked about in the SPM. However, it has the UKMO and the omitted feedbacks written all over it in the summary projections of the 'Representative Concentration Pathways' [RCPs]. Especially notable is that though everything in AR5 is predicated on these new scenarios of what are called 'Representative Concentration Pathways' [RCPs], the one thing that is left out of all their output [in summary below] is the actual concentration pathways themselves. Everything else is there. The reason for this is very simple. As published on the RCP website, the concentration pathways [at least for scenarios around RCP 2.6 - the 'Low Scenario' that roughly equals that in the UK Climate Act] show a show an increased strength of carbon uptake over the Century ahead with more than 100% emission uptake by the natural sinks aftger 2050. The circled wagons of UKMO and IPCC don't want this talked about. As further GCI evidence to the current EAC enquiry into the adequacy of the UK Climate Act stated, "Modelling negative feedback into the coupled carbon cycle is only theoretically plausible as long as UKMO’s ‘climate-modelling’ continues to omit all the other larger scale feedback effects [as they have already now admitted]." As witness to the current EAC enquiry into the adequacy of the UK Climate Act Dr Ulrich Loening wrote in evidence, "the UKMO's omission of positive feedbacks from the modelling that is used to estimate emission budgets is therefore very serious. The resulting errors in the modelling could have serious political and implementation consequences. It is for this reason that IPCC has repeatedly under-estimated the likely effects of rising greenhouse gas concentrations." In other words once the feedbacks are included in the models, the whole picture changes. It is all much more serious thatn IPCC report and the only vestige of hope now is with making a LOW carbon-budget [Zero global emissions by 2050 or sooner] the top imperative. 21 August 2013 - "C&C an important contribution at glopbal warming negotiations." Lawless World Philippe Sands Governments are not the only participants, unlike in the old days. The demands of legitimacy and accountability in international law-making mean that the doors have been opened to all and sundry. For the global warming negotiations there were hundreds of observers and participants, representing corporations (the oil and automobile industries in particular) and nongovernmental organizations such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, as well as a myriad of developmental groups like Christian Aid and Oxfam. There were a smaller number of NGOs from developing countries, some of which were highly effective. There were also individuals participating on their own account, like Aubrey Meyer from Willesden, north London, who attended all the sessions and has now made an important contribution with his theory of 'Contraction and Convergence' (which proposes setting a global cap, and then gradually reducing emission entitlements until each person on the planet has the same emission rights). Lawless World Prof Philippe Sands 21 August 2013 - "The oft-debated C&C" Bali & Beyond. Planning a post-Kyoto World. Australian Institute of International Affairs Yet there is a range of target proposals that are consistent with the Convention’s principles that are likely to appeal to developed countries. One oft-debated model is Contraction and Convergence, pioneered by Aubrey Meyer of the London Global Commons Institute (Meyer 2000). Under this model, world aggregate emissions must contract to a safe level (say by 80-90%) within an appropriate time (say 2050) in accordance with scientific recommendations, and each country’s per capita emissions must eventually converge to that safe level. This effectively gives each citizen of the world the right to pollute up to a certain safe level. Countries with high per capita emissions must contract, while countries with very low per capita emissions would be given room to grow. The adjustment would be facilitated by global emissions trading that would provide a net resource transfer from the high per capita emitters to low per capita emitters. However, many developed countries are likely to baulk at the cost of this scheme, which also depends on agreement on a timely rate of emissions contraction by developed countries and measures to prevent the trading of ‘subsistence emissions’ in developing countries. Bali and Beyond: Planning for a Post-Kyoto World 21 August 2013 - "C&C meets the 4 Principles" Sustainability at the Cutting Edge Peter Smith Architectural Press Sustainability at the cutting edge How can the burden of emissions reductions be shared equitably between nations? The Global Commons Institute argues that the only fair way to share it out is to give every person in the world the same allocation of carbon dioxide emissions. That is shown in the diagram as applying from the year 2030; between now and 2030 is the period of ‘convergence’. That is a very radical proposal; for instance the allocation to someone in the UK would be less that 20% of our current average per capita emissions. The only way it could be achieved would be through carbon trading between nations. Industrialized nations would buy carbon credits from countries in the developing world, where the per capita rate of carbon emissions is below the target average so that the carbon gap progressively narrows ultimately to zero. This proposal well illustrates the problem and the type and scale of action that is necessary; it is also one that meets to a good degree the four principles that need to underlie such action are: - the Precautionary Principle, the Polluter Pays Principle (e.g. through measures such as carbon taxes or capping and trading arrangements), the Principle of Sustainable Development and lastly a Principle of Equity across the nations and across the generations. Figure 1.5 comes from the Global Commons Institute – the proposal it describes is called contraction and convergence. It shows emissions of carbon dioxide in the past, in the present and predictions for the next 100 years, the sources of emissions being divided into major country groupings. The overall envelope is an emissions profile that would stabilize carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere at 450 ppm, not dissimilar to the curve in Fig. 1.4. It peaks within a few decades from now and then comes rocketing down to well below today’s value of emissions by the end of the century. 20 August 2013 - CBAT Help [information button] now working. "Big improvement." CBAT 'Help' [info-button] now works. Mouse-touch page-features & get information-tabs & html pages. Big improvement. 20 August 2013 - "CBAT beautifully encapsulates the seriousness of the issue for climate-negotiators." Julian Salt I have known Aubrey Meyer for way too long! We met in 1990 in his flat where I saw the first versions of the Contraction & Convergence model he had developed along with Tony Cooper. To say I was impressed at the time is an understatement. The model beautifully encapsulates in graphics the total global man-made emissions by country and apportions responsibility in terms of respective emissions reductions required to manage the global climate system to a safe level within a century. I followed Aubrey to endless UNFCCC meetings around the planet to see stone-walled appreciation of his model and graphics but a collective unwillingness to adopt his model as a centre piece for the UNFCCC negotiations that eventually lead to the Kyoto Protocol. As we all know this first step was way too small to have an effect and needs a serious up-grade. For negotiators to make the next steps more effective they have to not only grapple with the rising tide of man-made emissions, but also the far more important issue of feedback emissions (both natural and induced). This CBAT model created by Aubrey Meyer encapsulates this issue in his usual style of beautiful imagery that at a glance will show any negotiator the seriousness of the problem at hand. CBAT will at a stroke negate all present emissions targets as futile and force them to reconsider the whole issue from a global perspective. As past efforts have shown, if this approach is not taken another 10-20 years will be wasted in more UNFCCC meetings. I commend this model to any agency that cares to listen and act on his findings. Julian Salt Independent Researcher Canterbury, UK Current - Home Previous - KOS Media, Building Research Establishment (BRE), Loss Prevention Council Education - University of Bradford 20 August 2013 - "Endorse C&C, environmental justice and fair sharing." Sao Paulo Ecological Footprint WWF Brazil Once the biocapacity has been delineated the Ecological Footprint establishes a direct link between the renewable natural resources effectively available and their consumption in the form of goods and services, without considering certain aspects more strictly associated to the production chains such as processing and distribution. These aspects are much more related to analyses of product life cycles, which evaluates their useful lives, passing through all the stage and processes involved until the product is placed on the market, or depending on the scope of the analysis, until the disposal of its residues has been completed. In the latter case, each stage of production can be analysed separately. The Carbon Footprint and the Water Footprint are much more closely related to analyses of product life-cycles or processes than the Ecological Footprint. That is one of the main differences between these sustainability indicators. However, only the Ecological Footprint and the Water Footprint are capable of accounts that include an evaluation of the planet's capacity as a source (resource production) arid also its capacity as a 'sink' (residue assimilation). In the case of the Carbon Footprint, all it does is to analyse the GG emissions that generate impacts on the biosphere. Of the three, the Ecological Footprint is the only indicator capable of establishing an ecological benchmark (biocapacity) demonstrating human pressure on the planet. Anthropic GG emissions are tracked as much by the Ecological Footprint as by the Carbon Footprint, but the underling intention of the Ecological Footprint in regard to carbon, is to measure the volume of ecosystem services needed to absorb those residues. Furthermore, the Ecological Footprint is based on the premise that we are making use of natural assets that are finite and that means that it is not sufficient merely to improve efficiency in resource use especially when the ricochet effect of economies is considered. 5 There is an urgent need to think in terms of the qualitative growth of the economies and their interactions with the environment given that the extraction of renewable natural resources is also influential in determining land settlement patterns. The three indicators reveal the unequal distribution of resource use among the inhabitants of the world's different regions. Based on such data it is possible to provide support for development policies and endorse concepts such as contraction and convergence, environmental justice and fair sharing. 19 August 2013 - "Contraction and Convergence - we need clear and bold targets, timetables and review mechanisms." ANPED Contraction and convergence Our economic system is actually based on debts. Most of our money and financial transactions are virtual. We need to bring back the economy into a real economy. One of the options is a common-based-economy, bringing the economic system also back within the limits of the planet’s resources.  What has become patently clear is that business as usual is not an option. Thus, the starting point of the SDG/post-2015 framework must be in respect of the original definition of Sustainable Development (Brundtland Report): “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” According to the same report, the above definition contains within it two key concepts: - “The concept of ‘needs’, in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment’s ability to meet present and future needs”. In short, the SDGs are not about new commitments, but about ambitious means and targets and strong decision/will to fulfil/implement what has been already since 1992 agreed among nation leaders. Accordingly, the framework should set out the conditions that need to be put in place to overcome the obstacles people face in participating fully in society in a satisfying way. These obstacles are rooted in political, legal, social, economic, and other structures starting at the local level and extending up to the international level. The adverse effects of these obstacles are compounded by the accelerated impacts of environmental degradation, increasing risks because of climate change, the demographic crisis and mounting social inequality and ecological debt that has arisen out of an ineffective paradigm of growth and development. While these obstacles are experienced across cultures, economies and geographical territories and include, for example, corruption, non-transparent decision-making, lack of accountability of duty-bearers, gender inequality etc. their exact nature and extent differ depending on the circumstances. In order to develop the future SDGs for the achievement of sustainable societies, where wellbeing and dignity of all is secured, lifestyles within the limits of the ecological capital are established, equality is the norm and life in all its forms and expressions is treated with respect, we propose that the SDG/post-2015 framework will be structured as follows: - 1 An overarching, global consensus stating the vision of sustainable development and the values that should guide policies and actions outlined in the framework. This would be similar in style to the Earth Charter, and respected in its entirety of all sustainable development goals. This shared vision can be inspired by already agreed social international documents, principles and targets (UNDESA, FAO, WHO, Habitat, CBD, ..). Agreed concepts like common-but-differentiated responsibilities, subsidiarity principles, precaution principle, polluter pays principle, right to food and access to basic needs must be integrated. The shared vision also has to be constructed on evidence based reports on planetary boundaries, carrying capacity of the earth, systemic change, transition management, and of course on civil society methodologies, like human rights based approach, redistribution of wealth, material flows and fair sharing of ecological footprint. 2 There need to exist mechanisms for demanding the accountability of progress made: For all goals we need clear and bold targets, timetables and review mechanisms. Every 3 years countries have to explain what they did, how they did it, and with what results. On the other hand, a bottom up citizen’s accountability has to be recognised, like ombudsperson for future generations, peer reviews, monitoring reporting. Clear deadlines must be set for such mechanisms and systems of appeal established when all other avenues of accountability have been exhausted. 3 Democratic governance and implementation: all countries agreed already on defining a National Strategy for Sustainable Development (NSSD). In this NSSD the SDGs can be integrated as main points of action, together with the country specific targets. The by the World bank imposed PRSPs (Poverty Reduction Strategy Plans) can be shifted into the NSSDs. Especially because the PRSP are too export oriented, while the NSSD have more attention for own food and resource sovereignty. The NSSD have to be the overall framework where other strategy plans and roadmaps have to have it in. Based on the subsidiary principle regional and local governments have to define where their role and responsibilities lay. 4 Sources of finances for the SDGs has to be clear from the start: just as the integration of the SDGs in overall policy goals (NSSDs), the national budgets for achieving those goals has to be defined on national levels. And all budgets that go against those goals have to be cut. Besides the integration in the national budgets for realising their own policy strategies, the agreed 0,7% GDP for ODA can be directed for the SDGs in partner countries. Nevertheless there will be need for further investments to be made. For that additional and alternative mechanisms have to be applied, like a global Financial Transaction Tax (FTT), CO2 tax, footprint tax, ... 5 Coherence checks with other (inter)national policies and institutions: Sustainable Development needs a paradigm shift and most of existing policy strategies and institutional bodies are still in the old paradigm of supporting unlimited growth, large scale, intensive and global production schemes, privatisation of the commons, creating a debt based economy. For that reason it is crucial that while implementing the SDGs there is a continuous coherence check with related internal policies, like the European 2020, Common Agriculture Policy (CAP), but also with the rules of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the impacts of the IFIs. Together with the 3-yearly reviews of the SDGs, we need to detect what kinds of reforms are needed to get liberated of the potential blockers coming from the other institutions and policies. 6 Alternative indicators: debates on the beyond GDP indicators are growing. A lot of knowledge and indicators already exist. Together with the holistic and interlinking approach of Sustainable Development, a set of indicators (environment, equity, well being, etc.) has to be developed to give the best display of the current situation. No need to invent new ones, but combine several existing ones to one overarching dashboard. As the MDGs have shown, data collection can be vastly improved and broadened as a positive outcome of the framework. Process indicators on levels of participation and accountability processes should be included. 7 Transparency and access to information and active participation: One of the key drawbacks of the MDGs – both in terms of the process of designing the framework and its outcomes - was the total lack of empowerment and involvement of the actors concerned. Transparency where and when decisions are made and active participation in the whole process is crucial for the concrete implementation of the future goals. On the different levels, (inter)national, regional and local, the appropriate structures must be there for all stakeholders to be informed and involved. 8 A set of global goals challenging the status quo and addressing the key global challenges: In view of the degree of globalisation today, with ever closer interrelationships between economies and people and a growing number of universal challenges which require international cooperation, cross-border action and policy coordination, a global framework is undoubtedly needed. This must inevitably therefore be made up of a series of global goals. To our mind, if the framework is to transform business as usual, while abiding by the principles we mentioned, then these global goals must be aspirational in nature and must apply to all people in all countries. Furthermore, all countries will be required to contribute to make progress on each goal in their own context (taking into consideration the fact of different starting points). Those will be expressed in the National Strategies on Sustainable Development (NSSD). 19 August 2013 - "NHS should act on C&C principle in service of globla social justice." Transformational Change Hanlon et al Emergent & ecological ethics A simple aim of policy should be to reduce the ecological footprint of the NHS. This could conceivably be achieved in several ways. First, pursue activities directed at energy efficiency, food procurement, and equipment design. Many parts of the NHS are already beginning to explore these options. Second, abandon resource intensive policies that have marginal health gains (the disposable instrument culture is one example). Third, do some things differently. A very large proportion of acute care is directed towards patients who are in the last six to twelve months of their lives. Yet we have a default position which drives an approach to investigation and treatment that is resource intensive and often fails to serve the needs of the dying person. Fourth, do less, where appropriate. We may have to accept that in a resource-constrained world, we could be satisfied with less: fewer consultations, less treatment, less of some forms of health care. This does not mean that outcomes would automatically worsen; they could well improve. Fifth, simplify the NHS. The future is likely to be characterised by what is currently called ‘downshifting’ – voluntarily making life simpler with less choice and fewer demands. The NHS could embrace this philosophy and release the creativity of staff and patients so that a model for practice emerges which is not only simpler but leads to better outcomes and patient and practitioner satisfaction. Sixth, make every NHS facility accessible on foot, by bicycle, and by public transport. Seventh, produce drugs and equipment with as little reliance on petrochemicals as possible; all consumables used by the NHS should be produced locally where possible. Eighth and last, the NHS should acknowledge and act on broader ecological principles of ‘contraction and convergence’ (Meyer 2000) in the service of global social justice. In addition, rather than speaking of the NHS as an abstract reality, it might be better framed as staff, patients, teams, services, facilities and so on, all working with the personal intention to leave the world in a better shape than we found it. This is a restorative ethic, relational and intrinsically more resilient than our current just-in-time delivery style. Applying the integrative framework to the major public health challenges & the future NHS 19 August 2013 - "Failure to C&C has unpredictable health consequences." Future Public Health; Hanlon, Carlisle, Hannah, Lyon. Contraction and convergence [C&C] It has been calculated that a world of more than nine billion people will require an 80 to 90% reduction in carbon use by rich countries and drastic reductions in many other forms of consumption, to avoid worsening of existing problems. If sustainability and global equity is to be a goal, we will have to achieve ‘contraction’ in the richer world and 'convergence' with the poorer world. The phrase 'Contraction and Convergence' has primarily been used as a response to the threat of runaway climate change (Meyer 2000), and is one with which public health practitioners need to be familiar. Meyer's argument is that the whole world needs a contraction In the production of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which is an output of increased industrialization and economic growth. Rich and poor nations must eventually converge in their carbon production to avoid nothing less than a climate catastrophe. Less developed nations must be allowed to develop - so their carbon use goes up - while Industrialized and post Industrial nations must make substantial reductions (Meyer 2000). Failure to contract and converge will have health consequences that may be hard to predict but will probably include the loss of agricultural land, severe storms and flooding, forest fires, hunger and forced economic migration, and so on. Contraction and convergence is of course another form of redistribution on a global scale, and the concept can apply to other resources and not just the carbon that affluent societies depend on. Consider, for example, the challenge of 'Contraction and Convergence'. This is a concept that has been developed in response to global warming and other environmental threats. The idea is simple. The world needs a contraction in output of carbon dioxide but for all to buy in to such an agreement it must be transparently just: hence the need for convergence. Less developed nations must be allowed to develop, which may mean an increased carbon utilization, while Industrial and Post-Industrial nations must make substantial reductions. However, an ethical framework which ensures global justice and equity while safeguarding the rights of of individuals has yet to emerge. This will be a key challenge if the world is not to face runaway climate change and collapse. The Future Public Health Phil Hanlon, Sandra Carlisle, Margaret Hannah, Andrew Lyon 17 August 2013 - "Planning & Development facilitate C&C." Making Healthy Places, A Dennenburg, H Frumkin, R J Jackson Planning and development of our built environment can facilitate Contraction and Convergence and enable people to live in healthy ways. Making Healthy Places Building Design for Health, Well-Being and Sustainability Andrew Dannenburg, Howard Frumkin, Richard J Jackson 17 August 2013 - "Katherine Hayhoe co-authors pro-C&C UCS Report" - Newt chucks 'babe' out! Given a global emissions budget (the overall amount of carbon that can be released into the atmosphere worldwide), the next task is to allocate each nation’s share of responsibility for the budget—first, by dividing the budget between industrialized and developing nations as a whole, and then, among individual nations. Several proposals suggest that the most equitable approach would be to allocate global emissions reductions by population for example Contraction and Convergence How to Avoid Dangerous Climate Change Union of Concerned Scientists Katharine Hayhoe is a research associate professor in the Department of Geosciences at Texas Tech University and chief executive officer of ATMOS Research & Consulting. Her contribution to the new book by Newt Gingrich was revoked at the last minute as Mr Gingrich has returned to playing 'King CaNewt' on climate change and right-wing rabble rouser Rush Limbaugh has denounced the 'babe'. In addition to being a climate scientists, Katherine is a practicing Christian who generally take a pro-C&C view Mr Gingrich however is now clearly stuck in Limbaugh. 15 August 2013 - "C&C - moving beyond the impasse." Governance Democracy & Sustainable Development Rudd et al Thus, the national action prescribed is anchored in a distinct perception of global justice – that equal emissions rights on a per capita basis, often dubbed “Contraction and Convergence”. Governance, Democracy and Sustainable Development: Moving Beyond the Impasse? By James Meadowcroft, Oluf Langhelle, Audun Rudd 17 August 2013 - "What following C&C means for airlines, yet to be determined." Towards Sustainable Aviation Paul Upham et al This is advocated with awareness of the magnitude of the political task. In the view of the RCEP, a standing advisory body to the UK government, 'an effective, enduring and equitable climate protocol will eventually require emission quotas to be allocated to nations on a simple and equal per capita basis' (RCEP, 2000, p56). In this scenario, national emission quotas would follow a contraction and convergence trajectory, with each nation's allocation gradually shifting from its current level of emissions towards a level set on a uniform per-capita basis (RCEP, 2000, p57). Quite what this would mean for airlines and airports has yet to be determined. For governments committed to stabilizing anthropogenic influence on climate change, the outcome for aviation will be particularly influenced by societal priorities for fossil fuel use and rates of technological change. 17 August 2013 - Report from the Lords-Commons Joint Committee Report on the UK Climate Act 2007 [This fight is not over] The 60% target came from RCEP 2000 38. A key feature of the draft Bill is the long-term target of a 60% reduction in carbon dioxide by 2050. This target was first announced in the Energy White Paper of 2003, and, as the Government acknowledged in its oral evidence to us, was in response to a recommendation by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (RCEP) in its influential report, Energy: the Changing Climate, published in 2000.38 39. The 60% target which the RCEP recommended was based on the adoption of the ‘contraction and convergence’ approach first advocated in 1990 by the Global Commons Institute. Contraction and Convergence involves calculating the maximum global level of emissions which could be regarded as ‘safe’, and apportioning these emissions to countries on an equal per capita basis. Some countries, in particular the carbon-intensive developed nations, would currently be well in excess of their apportioned amounts and would need to radically reduce their emissions, while less developed countries would be allowed to increase their emissions. 40. Since the RCEP made this recommendation in 2000, understanding of climate change has increased significantly. Research carried out in recent years, most notably, as far as many of those submitting evidence are concerned, the Tyndall Centre, has indicated that the risks of climate change are greater than previously assumed, and that the ‘safe’ level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is lower than previously thought. Box 2 highlights research in the Stern Review which places the UK in the context of a division of global emissions targets by different blocs of nations; it suggests that the UK and other developed countries need to cut their emissions by at least 60%-90%. Indeed, much of the evidence we received from experts consequently indicated that the target of 60% was insufficient, and that a target of up to 80% would now be more appropriate. Amongst witnesses, with the solitary exception of Lord Lawson of Blaby, there was a remarkable degree of consensus on this point across environmental NGOs, scientific institutions, and even the Government itself. 16 August 2013 - Evidence to the Lords-Commons Joint Committee Report on the UK Climate Act 2007 [This fight is not over] 1. Aged 43, Aubrey Meyer put brackets around a career in music and cofounded the Global Commons Institute (GCI) in London in 1990. Since then he has campaigned at the United Nations negotiations on climate change to win acceptance of the management of global greenhouse gas emissions through the framework of, “Contraction and Convergence” (C&C). In 1998, he won the Andrew Lees Memorial Award for this and, in 2000, the Schumacher Award. In 2005 the City of London made a life-time’s achievement award to him, saying that from the worlds of business, academia, politics and activism, he had made the greatest contribution to the understanding and combating of climate change having led strategic debate or policy formation. The citation read, “in recognition of an outstanding personal contribution to combating climate change at an international level through his efforts to enhance the understanding and adoption of the principle of Contraction and Convergence.” C&C is now cited as, “. . . destined to become one of the most important principles governing international relations in the 21st Century. It is a powerful ethic that incorporates global justice and sustainability” and Aubrey [in a recent edition of the New Statesman] as “one of the ten people in world likely to change it.” 2. How Contraction and Convergence (C&C) works and the growing and expert support for it, is laid out it some detail on the DVD created by the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Climate Change published in May 2007. 50,000 copies of this DVD have been requested and distributed globally since that time. General Statement 3. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was signed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. Its objective is to avert the growing climate crisis by stabilising the dangerously rising concentration of greenhouse gas concentration in the global atmosphere caused by human emissions. Its principles are precaution and equity. In a phrase, this means ending unequal rights to use the atmosphere as a dump for emissions without limit as failing to do this will result in the political deadlock that leads to catastrophic rates of global climate change. 4. The objective and principles of theUNFCCCare the legally agreed global basis of success. As stated by the Convention’s Secretariat in 2003 and many others, these give rise to an international process of emissions Contraction and Convergence (C&C) where, on the basis of equal rights per person to emit, the global total of emissions must fall fast enough to secure the Convention’s objective—safe and stable greenhouse gas concentration in the global atmosphere. This constitutional but flexible rationale was specified to Government in the Report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution [RCEP 2000—“Energy the Changing Climate”]. 5. This year [2007] UK government’s ‘climate-bill’ makes the first attempt anywhere to actually legislate for the reduction of the greenhouse gas emissions from human sources. While the Government deserves credit for making this eVort, it hardly had a choice given their increasingly vivid statements about the seriousness of the climate change problem. 6. The key is for the bill to be eVective:—and the 60% cut in UK emissions by 2050 it proposes is inadequate as any internationally equitable arithmetic based on this will in total exceed any chance for achieving safe and stable greenhouse gas concentration in the global atmosphere. 7. For reasons never explained, and apparently still preferring a global “upstairs-downstairs” relationship between developed and developing countries where the diVerence between per capita emissions go from very high to very low, the UK Government’s bill has cherry-picked its UK national figure [minus 60%] from the Royal Commission while rejecting the international C&Crationale from which it was derived and then advocated as a whole by the RCEP. This is common knowledge globally. 8. Consequently, the practice needed to secure the UNFCCC’s objective will continue to fail at an accelerating rate as the overall situation deteriorates for as long as the UK government fails to advocate the constitutionally disciplined numeracy of C&C needed for success with the UNFCCC. 9. Rising greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere is an accumulation of human emissions; since emissions are still rising, inevitably concentration is rising too. In total, human global greenhouse gas emissions are like water from a tap flowing into a bath where as the atmosphere the emissions accumulate. To prevent overflow the tap must be turned right oV. Instead, the tap of emissions is flowing faster than ever; worse still is the acceleration of this. Natural sinks for these gases—forests and oceans—are like the drain plug in the bath. Where previously around half of the annual build-up of gas in the atmosphere was drained away via these sinks, they are now proportionately less active as sinks and in some cases actually show signs of becoming sources; forests burn, oceans warm and are less biologically active as they acidify and retain less carbon dioxide. In short, the tap is running faster than ever, the drain is blocking up, and the bath level is accelerating upwards and we continue cause the problem faster than we act to avoid it. 10. As James Hansen, James Lovelock, the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report and many others have repeatedly stressed, this process can accelerate beyond any hope of our controlling it, where the consequences will be disastrous for all the children. To deal with this and give them a chance, emissions must fall rapidly and we must do enough soon enough globally for them to keep the objective of theUNFCCCachievable. Children should be turning this rational demand on their parents with a vengeance. 11. In March the UK Government circulated a draft of the climate bill for public consultation where it abandons all reference to the Royal Commission and to C&C. It says hopefully instead that the UK contribution is to place “a clear and credible pathway to a statutory goal of a 60% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions through domestic and international action by 2050.” This is hopeless as it is both globally random and internationally inadequate. Against the requirements of theUNFCCC, the figure is a white flag to the changing climate and a red rag to developing countries. 119 Copies of the DVD can be obtained by written request to GCI aubrey.meyerwbtinternet.com. Alternatively, interview material is retrievable at this link: http://www.gci.org.uk/images/Contraction–and–Convergence–Challen–et–al.mpg. The DVD also includes a heuristic animation of Contraction and Convergence for a risk analysis of diVerent rates of sink-failure endorsed by prominent industry persons. It is retrievable at this link: 12. While our Prime Minister calls for developed and emerging economies to work together towards a new binding and inclusive post-Kyoto framework where each country, its businesses and its people play their parts, the Environment Minister of Pakistan comes to Chatham House in London to say that C&C is an idea whose time had come. While the Indian Government calls for the ending of global apartheid in the Daily Telegraph saying that the case for C&C is “unassailable”, they reject in perpetuity being positioned as second class climate “petitioners”, promising instead as ‘partners’ never to let their average per capita emission go above the average of the developed countries. 13. The very grave danger we now face is that vacuous ‘sustainable development’ defaults to the futile model of “separate development” that nearly led to a racial conflagration in “apartheid” South Africa. 14. For the UK lead to be clear and credible it must embrace this lesson as a global constitutional truth. The bill needs to enshrine C&C like a global bill of rights. It flies in the face of sanity to go on defending internationally unequal claims on the atmosphere and violate the global limits that are needed to save us all from what the Prime Minister has called a looming “climate catastrophe”. Defending inequality sustains a conflict that has festered at the UN for the last 15 years. Unless stopped it will end in tears. 15. Only when the Government rises to this constitutional challenge by referencing C&C-logic to the emissions control aspirations in the climate bill, can they rightfully claim to lead with the global example that ensures reconciliation with each other and the planet. Scope of Committee’s Inquiry—The Committee Focuses Its Inquiry on Themes Stated in Italics. GCI Answers Follow each Question [& Ref APPGCC C&C DVD Provided] 1. What the main aims and purposes of the Bill are and why it is needed. The aims of the Bill are to make into UK law the requirements of UK in the light of its status as a signatory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The draft bill has an emissions control figure [60% UK emissions by 2050 against a 1990 baseline] that is based on no stated rationale or methodology that demonstrates an awareness of the need to solve the climate problem faster than we are creating it. This awareness is needed and its omission is a fundamental flaw in the bill as it stands. 2. To what degree is it appropriate to legislate regarding carbon targets and budgeting, and how should a balance between compulsory and voluntary action best be achieved and assessed? As a signatory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol, the UK is already required by international Law to define and deliver its share of the international task defined by the objective and principles of the UNFCCC. Unless and until the rule of law ceases to apply and chaos reigns, all voluntary actions are governed by this institutional reality. Assessing this task in the sense of global proportionality is fundamental to resolving the challenge and applying this assessment. The absence of having rationally assessed the problem, renders the climate bill into a “symbolic” statute as it potentially governs a merely half-hearted, insuYcient and so wasted effort. 3. Whether the omission of the role of local government from the draft Bill will hinder public support for, and engagement with, the aims of the legislation, and what measures should be included in the Bill to secure a change in public behaviour. The public individually and both public and private institutions cannot be expected to support, and indeed are unlikely to support, measures that are seen—in the absence of a clear and credible global rationale and a global commitment to this—as doing too little too late. 4. Whether statutory targets should be set only for carbon dioxide; and the extent to which the proposed 60% emissions reduction by 2050 is adequate, based on the most recent appropriate evidence. Based on the most recent appropriate evidence of sink-failure and enhance positive feedback to global warming, the control figure is inadequate and irrational; divorced from now available empirical data and feedback about this, it is globally random. CO2 emissions must be globally rationed according to the Contraction and Convergence (C&C) methodology [on which this figure was originally based]; in the light of this new evidence and simple risk analysis [see DVD]. With this, all and indeed any national statutes set consistent with the internationally agreed C&C objective and principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have a chance of being eVective. Without this, all and any statutes to this stated purpose are vulnerable to the charge of irrationality and will be overwhelmed. 5. What diffculties face the Government in controlling total UK carbon emissions and determining the optimal trajectory towards the 2050 target; and whether a system of five year carbon budgets and interim targets represents the most appropriate way of doing so? The diffculties faced by this and indeed all governments, here and abroad over the next few decades are “quantum”. We need to know where we are and where we are going in relation to, but also in concert with, everyone else [ie jointly and severally] throughout the multi-decadal period relevant to the integral of emissions that is consistent with achieving the objective of the UNFCCC. This by definition is “teleological” and this is not moment to go out of focus. It means that the “optimal trajectory” cited nationally is inextricably linked with the “optimal trajectory” internationally/globally. The suggested distinction and choice between UK annual, or UK five-year, budgets is meaningless in the absence of a global rationale. This is where the UK bill is at its weakest—the control figure is devoid of any such rationale and this makes this “choice” and efforts to resolve it appear theoretical and even pedantic. 6. The extent to which carbon sequestration and the use of credits from overseas investment projects should be permitted; and whether the Bill should specify the maximum amount and type of carbon credits from such sources which should count towards the target. “Carbon credits” from “sequestration” and the various forms of “off-sets” are largely symbolic in the absence of a rigorous accounting system which in turn is rigorously defined by a clear and credible international framework enumerated of the objective and principles of the UNFCCC. Subject to this C&C framework, all forms of carbon avoidance should be encouraged; without it they will be largely meaningless. 7. Whether the proposed constitution, remit, powers, and resources of the Committee on Climate Change are appropriate; and the extent to which its function may overlap with, and be partially dependent on, forecasting and analytical activity within departments. Similarly the UK’s intended ‘national’ committee on climate change is largely symbolic in the absence of a rigorous accounting system defined by an international framework enumerated oV the objective and principles of the UNFCCC. Subject to this framework, the creation of this committee and reference to its work will be relevant and essential. 8. The legal consequences of the Government failing to meet the targets set in the Bill, including whether the Secretary of State should be subject to judicial review and, if so, whether it would be an effective enforcement mechanism. Similarly the UK’s intended judicial review with enforcement mechanisms for non-compliance will be largely symbolic in the absence of a rigorous accounting system defined by an international framework enumerated oV the objective and principles of the UNFCCC. Subject to this framework, the review and enforcement procedures will be relevant. 9. How the provisions of the Bill will relate to the devolved parliament and assemblies and their administrations. The relevant unit of globally devolved powers will probably for the UK be from the European Union downwards. Provision of the bill that are devolved from the UK national government to the regions will not be credible if the bill remains as it presently is, including if the EU itself remains unreferenced to any credible global rationale. 10. Whether the provisions of the Bill are compatible or appropriate within the framework of European Union targets. See answer Question 9. 11. How the contents of the Bill will affect international climate change activity. This is actually the apex question in this list. The diffculty we all face is that globally we are already well advanced in a process of having cumulatively created this problem much faster than we are responding to avoid it. CO2 emissions and GDP remain almost perfectly correlated so the problem is double-jeopardy. Damages from climate change—albeit from a lower based—grow on average at twice rate of GDP. Also the benefits of this $ growth are asymmetric largely favouring the one third of global population who enjoy 94% of US$-equivalent purchasing power. The two thirds of population who share the remaining 6% are also taking most of the real climate damages. Without C&C this is a recipe for conflict on a scale without precedent. 12. Whether the delegated powers contained within the Bill are appropriate and adequate. In the absence of the C&C framework they, like the bill itself, are neither. 15 August 2013 - "C&C Principle underpins Stern's approach." Utopia as Method Ruth Levitas The questions of sustainability arid equality are linked in the idea of Contraction and Convergence. This principle underpins Stern's approach amid international agreements about the progressive reduction of carbon emissions. It derives from Aubrey Meyer, environmental campaigner, founder of the Global Commons Institute and musician. Meyer begins by reflecting that 'both writing and playing music are largely about wholeness and principled distribution of "effort" or practice. Responding to the climate challenge seems much like writing or playing music, where balance on the axes of reason and feeling, time and space, can only come from internal consistency'. 'Perhaps', he says, 'all life aspires to the condition of music'. For Meyer and Stern, Contraction and Convergence apply only to national per capita levels of carbon emissions, but the approach can be widened to include other scarce resources and inequalities within nation states. CONVERGE, an international research project dedicated to managing the earth's resources more fairly and effecting a transition to a sustainable future, applies the same principle to the 'sustainability of trade, economics, society, the runural environment, energy, food, governance, wellbeing and consciousness'. CONVERGE seeks processes leading to convergence or contraction, whether they begin with individuals, civil society, economy or state. It involves 'a critical examination of contraction policies in the light of fairness and critical examination of fairness policies in the light of reducing our impact on naturer,' Fairness has a quite different political purpose than for Hutton and is closer to Morris's idea of equality of condition. CONVERGE recognizes that equal inputs do not necessarily result in equal outputs: 'fairness, equity., equality and justice reside in the provision of services to each and every one of us — services of habitat, food., community, well-being, energy, materials, governance, trade and wealth. We can seek fairness not in equal shares or quotas of physical resources but in equal outcomes from the use of differing amounts of materials and energy as appropriate to local context. Utopia as Method Ruth Levitas 14 August 2013 - "C&C - a solution to climate change & inequity." BMJ/Healthy Planet UK [affiliated to Medsin-UK] The BMJ's Spotlight on Climate Change: * How the low carbon economy can improve health http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1018 * The health impacts of climate change http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1026   * Climate change and resource security http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1352  * Politics and policies: making change happen http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1356   * Climate change: what needs to be done http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1358 * Health risks, present and future, from global climate change http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1359 * Contraction and convergence: a solution to the twin problems of climate change and inequity http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1765 13 August 2013 - "Keeling, Hansen & Meyer 3 leaders, great persistence." Stephen Keim President Lawyers for Human Rights The Qualities of Leaders Some of the qualities we will need from our leaders are shown by the three people whose work I have briefly described. Each of Dave Keeling, Jim Hansen and Aubrey Meyer has shown great persistence. Each of the three has shown great creativity. We will need our leaders to come up with ideas at each stage of the difficult process of combating climate change. Dave Keeling’s dedication to measuring CO2 levels and getting it right has produced the most uncompromising evidence of all that our addiction to burning fossil fuels is changing, fundamentally, the thin layer of gases on which life on earth depends. Jim Hansen, I think, has shown enormous courage as well as persistence. He has been and will continue to be vilified for speaking out and talking to the public in the way that he has. Aubrey Meyer has shown a particular form of leadership: the ability to see through the dilemma to the moral answer. He has understood a particular moral truth, namely, that when everybody is being asked to change their way of life, the easy shortcuts are no longer available to anybody. My point in choosing Aubrey Meyer is that climate change leadership will require a very high moral component. Much of what has been said, pre-Copenhagen, has been designed to disguise and hide the tough moral decisions that the future holds. Talk about technology transfer from the developed countries is just a way of avoiding the issue. The demands by countries like India and China not to be frozen out of a western standard of living only makes sense if those countries are also prepared to say how much of a western life style is enough for them. The individual carbon ration, in whatever form it is delivered, is the only way in which climate change can be faced on an equitable basis. Game theory explains why equity is very important to solving climate change. Solving the problem is a game where any one player can wreck the game for others. If China will not play, the rest of us will go under the waters with China. It is only when everyone is satisfied that the rules of the game are fair that the game can effectively be played. It is only when leaders approach the question on the basis of equity that climate change will have any hope of being controlled. Stephen Keim President of Australian Lawyers for Human Rights 13 August 2013 - "C&C - the last hope?" Earth Environmentals Professor David Huddart Liverpool John Moores University Aubrey, I would be happy to support GCI's current C&C proposal to UNFCCC. There is an immediate need for more action on climate change and a response from all governments and international organisations like the United Nations. Individuals too can help in this and educational establishments like ours can educate students in a positive manner. Best Wishes David Professor David Huddart Director of Research Faculty of Education, Community and Leisure I.M.Marsh Campus Liverpool John Moores University Contraction and converqence: The last hope? Surporled by China, Germany, The European Parliament, Stern and many others, this concept is on the idea that everyone on planet Earth has the right to emit the same quantity of GHG. At present a US citizen emits 20 tonnes of CO2 each year, a UK citizen emits 11 tonnes while a Nigerian only emits 0.09 tonnes. Contraction and Convergence [C&C] is the Global Commone Institute's proposed UNFCCC-compliant climate mitigation strategy for an equitable solution to cutting greenhouse gas emissions through collective global action. The ultimate objective of the UN Climate Treaty is to move to safe and stable GHG concentration in the atmosphere and C&C starts with this. C&C recognizes that subject to this limit, we all have an equal entitlement to emit GHGs to the atmosphere, since continuing unequal use will make it impossible to get global agreement needed for success. The Kyoto Protocol cannot be the basis of this success, because it is not science-based and, due to divergent national interests, it does not include all countries. Scientists have advised on safe concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and on the global cap on emissions necessary to achieve it. A level of 450 ppmv has until recently been regarded as the upper limit for keeping under the maximum temperature oncrease of 2 degrees above the pre-industrial average. Figure 31.1 Regional Rates of Contraction and Convergence. The same contraction budget converges on shares equal to population by 2030 [GCI] From the inception of a global agreement, C&C schedules the mandatory annual global contraction [reduction of emissions] that will keep CO2 concentrations from rising beyond the agreed safe level. This rate of contraction must be periodically adjusted to take account of the increasing release of GHGs caused by climate warming. C&C proposes emissions entitlements to every country. While starting with current emissions, it proposes a scheduled convergence to equal per person entitlements for everyone on the planet by an agreed date [see figure above]. That way, convergence will reduce the carbon shares of the developed over-emitting countries sharply until they converge with the [temporarily rising] shares of the developing countries. The latter will be able to sell their surplus carbon shares to the wealthier nations. Emissions trading will be subject to rapid investment in renewable energy. The 14th session of the Conference of the Parties to the Climate Change Convention [COP-14] will be held in conjunction with the 4th Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol [COP 14] in Poznan, Poland, from 1 to 12 December 2008. In 2012 the Kyoto Protocol expires. To keep the process going there is an urgent need for a new climate protocol. In 2012 the Kyoto Protocol runs out. It is to be hoped that discussions at the Climate Conference in Copenhagen in 2009 and subsequent agreements lead to a Copenhagen Protocol to prevent global warming and climate change. Earth Environments: Past, Present and Future By David Huddart, Tim Stott 12 August 2013 - "C&C - equal rights to make use of global sinks." Climate Change Science & Policy Ed Stephen Schneider et al The question of how the costs of mitigation should be shared has received a relatively large share of attention in the climate debate and indeed can be characterized as "the equity question. Most analysts have concluded that fairness would seem to require acknowledgment of a fundamental equal right to make use of the global common sinks for greenhouse gas pollution. Some have proposed a straight per capita allocation of emissions rights or (more commonly) convergence to an equal per capita allocation over time. See, for example, A. Meyer, Contraction and Convergence: The Global Solution to Climate Change (Devon, UK: Green Books, Z000) or the website of the Global Commons Institute for a discussion of the classic “Contraction and Convergence” proposal. Climate Change Science and Policy Eds Stephen Schneider et al 12 August 2013 - "WRI, but not yet ASEAN, have reviewed C&C." Post 2020 Climate Regime Formation, Ed Suh-Yong-Chung Some early discussions have raised concerns that decisions made outside the UNFCCC process may have negative consequences on the legitimacy or credibility of the regime. However, it must be recognized that negotiations in smaller groups could lead to a more positive outcome which can then complement the multilateral process. Smaller group discussions can help in raising mutual awareness for specific regional problems, disseminating best practices and strengthening  networking. Equally important, it can help to keep climate change concerns and cooperative frameworks on the agenda. Available for some time is the plentiful academic literature on possible ways to move forward to build the climate change regime. While several institutions such as the World Resources Institute have attempted to survey and capture the diverse interests and views, there have been limited attempts for a similar review within institutions of the ASEAN member countries. As such, there is a lack of discussion on bottom—up approaches or alternatives such as the “Contraction and Convergence” principle supposedly to provide a more realistic way to improve the UNFCCC approach. What can be observed is that some advanced ASEAN member countries have conducted assessments, but of national interest, and subsequently made voluntary pledges—independently of ASEAN. Moving forward, there has yet to be an assessment on what an individual member country does within ASEAN and what ASEAN as a regional organization is hoping to achieve. The pledges are serious national political commitments indicating a significant shift from the business-as-usual approach. Post 2020 Climate Change regime Formation Ed Suh Yong Chung 12 August 2013 - "C&C - a proposal for Climate Justice." Just Sustainabilities, Julian Agyeman. In some respects it should riot be surprising that there are no inter­national agreements regarding the distribution of material resources, and that even agreement over common property resources such as fisheries, oceans, and the atmosphere is the subject of fraught negotia­tion. Nonetheless, principles of equity, vulnerability, and capability are frequently cited and often incorporated to some degree in international relations. But the dominant international institutions - that is the World Trade Organization (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Bank are dominated by neo-classical economic ideologies of distribution, thus leaving consideration of justice at the margins. In considering intergenerational distribution, Rawls (ibid.) suggests that each generation should put itself in the place of the next and ask what it could re nab' expect TO receive_ He presents [his thought experiment so as to identify 'just savings! Sustainability theorists have suggested that sustainable or fair rates of use of finite resources could be calculated in relation to the rate at which alternative ways of meeting the same needs are created. For example, it might be sustainable and just for one generation to use fossil fuels in the creation of a renewable energy infrastructure able to meet the needs of following generations. This example, of course, is made more complex by the implications of fossil fuel use on climate change, and it is here that consideration of large-scale environmental justice has been developed most. Here, consideration of justice and distributional issues has led to the development of a number of proposals for climate justice, such as Meyer's (2001) Contraction and Convergence which is the idea that emissions should not only gradually contract to an overall sustainable level, but also eventually converge upon equal pet- capita levels in all countries.. Despite its apparent simplicity, this concept has yet to win widespread support even from poorer nations, perhaps because it effectively postpones equity to a future date and does not include any compensation for past inequality. Some such as McLaren (2003), have termed these past inequalities 'climatic or 'ecological debt'. Just Sustainabilities Julian Agyeman 11 August 2013 - "C&C orders the priorities - the first proposal for an ethically sound approach to climate change." Ruth Makoff UEA As Goulder and Nadreau have suggested more explicitly, in this example we are faced with two alternative uncertainties – of quantity of emissions under an international carbon tax, or price under cap and trade. “Which uncertainty is worse?” they ask, concluding, “There is no easy answer”. However, an answer can be given if we are clear about how we order the criteria and our justifications for doing so. Aubrey Meyer’s “prioritized” priorities. The only attempt at such an ordering apparently made to date is by Aubrey Meyer, founder of the “Contraction and Convergence” (C&C) proposal. C&C was one of the first major policy proposals aiming to offer an ethically sound international approach to mitigating climate change. In common with many other broadly ethical analyses of climate change as an international challenge, it supposed a criterion of equity, but tried to place this within the context of other criteria (referred to as “priorities”), which, ordered according to importance, should ground an agreement on climate change. These were 1) Precaution, 2) Equity and 3) Efficiency, which, if followed, are supposed to give rise to 4) - “ten thousand things". However, 1 to 3 are all that are significant for our purposes for the time being, since 4 largely signifies that “sustainable prosperity” can only be reached by adhering to criteria 1 to 3 in that order. Confronting climate crisis: A framework for understanding the criteria for addressing dangerous climate change Ruth Makoff - Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University of East Anglia, Philosophy Department 11 August 2013 - "The most rational policy is C&C." Vetinarary and Animal Ethics C Wathes et al Since excessive meat consumption in developed nations is associated with non-communicable diseases, the most sensible solution is for developed nations to reduce meat consumption. The most rational policy is called contraction and convergence (McMichael and Butler 2010). This recommends a contraction in meat and dairy consumption in parts of the developed world, which currently consumes an excessive quantity, and an increase in parts of the developing world, ultimately leading to convergence of consumption at a sustainable level. This is consistent with feeding the world more equitably and achieving food justice. Finally, all of this is consistent with respecting the welfare of sentient farm animals because intensifi-cation has led to diminished animal welfare. This is consonant with society's current move towards concern for animal welfare. It also avoids the risk that agricultural intensification is at or close to the point of decreasing marginal returns. Sustainable intensification does not in itself require structural societal and economic changes. It is simply the aim to produce a larger amount of food, in a sustainable way, through continued intensification. The above analysis has shown that there are serious problems with this view. A central argument of this paper is that further intensification is not likely to be sustainable, due to natural and physical constraints. Radical naturalism, as its name suggests, involves more fundamental changes. This includes changes in consumption patterns, more serious consideration of demographics, a re-examination of the economy and an apprecia-tion of risk analysis. Q: Inter-governmental organisations like the FAO are aware of the issues and take them very seriously. All these different aspects are now addressed at that level with the 01E, FAO, World Food Programme and so on. I want to pick up on our tendency to generalise and use averages. You talked about the contraction and convergence model and the different levels of consumption in developed countries versus devel-oping countries. It's important to remember the diversity within those categories. The massive increase in animal product consumption in developing countries is primarily people of middle and higher income; it's not the poor and malnourished, who need those animal products. So policies are required that take account of protection of poor and malnourished people in developed and developing countries rather than simply looking at average intakes. A: Yes, I entirely agree. Veterinary and Animal Ethics: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Veterinary and Animal Ethics Edited by Christopher Wathes, Sandra Corr, Stephen May, Steven McCulloch, Martin Whiting 11 August 2013 - "C&C a popular model." International Relations Theories, Tim Dunne, Milja Kurki, Steve Smith One popular model is 'contraction and convergence' developed by the London-based Global Commons Institute, which proposes a major contraction of emissions by the rich countries and an eventual per capita convergence by all countries at a level that the atmosphere can safely absorb. This model provides developing countries with some room to grow, while also facilitating a considerable transfer of resources from the high per capita emitters to the low per capita emitters under carbon -trading schemes. In contrast, the negotiation of the post-Kyoto treaty is likely to follow the approach of the Kyoto Protocol, which avoided a principled-approach to the allocation of targets based on responsibility and capacity, and the best -available science, and simply left it to individual developed countries to choose their own targets. Moreover, some green critics argue that the 'flexibility instruments' introduced into the Kyoto Protocol, such as carbon trading and offsetting, enable those industries which can afford to purchase credits or offsets to continue their carbon pollution and avoid or defer the necessary green investment that would reduce their emissions at source. Flexibility thus serves to hollow out the responsibility of rich countries and undermine the UNFCCC norm that developed countries should lead the way in combating climate change by pioneering new, low carbon technologies and practices. While it is accepted that the participation of all major carbon emitters (including the USA, the EU, Russia, Japan, China, and India) is essential to the success of a post-Kyoto treaty, the terms of that participation must be such that environmental injustices are ameliorated rather than exacerbated. 11 August 2013 - "C&C first introduced by GCI in 1990." The Climatic Difference Principle Philip Smolenski McMasters University When it comes to proposing an equitable allocation of the global carbon sink, the dominant approach is a variation of equal-per-capita emissions, with only a few notable exceptions. First introduced by Aubrey Meyer, author of Contraction and Convergence (2001) and member of the Global Commons Institute (GCI), in 1990, and gaining political momentum through Anil Agarwal and Sunita Narain's publication Global Warming in an Unequal World (1991), equal per-capita emissions have been advocated by philosophers and non-philosophers alike. The Climatic Difference Principle Philip Smolenski - McMaster University 10 August 2013 - "C&C found considerable favour with those calling for Global Solidarity." European Environment Nathalie Berny The reference to 'required fairness' reflects the UNFCCC global solidarity principles. France proposed per capita norms as a means to attain equity, a preference also shared by India and China. The French proposal had similarities with the 'contraction and convergence model promoted by Meyer (2000). Viewing the atmosphere as a 'global commons', the Meyer model sought to distribute national obligations on the basis of international and intergenerational equity. By 'convergence' is understood the long-term transition to common emission levels through substantial cuts on the part of rich nations, whilst allowing the poorest nations to increase their emissions. The 'contraction and convergence' school of thought has found considerable favour among international non-governmental organisations (NG0s), who called for greater global solidarity. At the same time, a common per capita target for industrialised countries would be advantageous for France (Godard, 1997: 39), Prior to Kyoto, a narrow framing of the national interest was evident in the French negotiating position which offered merely to contain emissions at below two metric tonne.s of carbon per capita per year by 2000 — level some 10 per cent higher than in 1990 (IEA, 1996: 74). However, emissions per capita did not become an international norm because the implications were too demanding for industrialised nations. As second best, France argued during the negotiation of the 1998 burden-sharing agreement (which programmed an g per cent reduction in ELT-I 5 for the zoos-t a commitment period defined by the Kyoto Protocol) chat, given past performance, stabilising C.71-1G emissions at the 1990 level of 549.34 MiCO2 was enough. The stabilisation target was in contrast to the ambitious cuts accepted by Germany (21 %) and the UK (12.5 France had raised expectations by choosing to highlight equity consi¬derations, but finally refused either per capita or aggregate emissions reduction. The difference with Meyer's 'contraction and convergence' model lay in promoting convergence by others, without volunteering further contraction by France. L'intégration européenne par l'environnement: Le cas français By Nathalie Berny 10 August 2013 - "C&C widely praised as a way forward." Global Warming Last Chance for Change Paul Brown "This is a practice that will become more widespread, although whether it will ever achieve the aims of a long-running and laudable campaign by Aubrey Meyer, of the Global Commons Institute, is debatable. His idea is to allow everyone in the world an individual carbon budget. The starting point is that the average American emits 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, the average European 11 tonnes, a Chinese 2.4 tonnes and an Indian just over 1 tonne. Africans produce on average even less. Aubrey's idea is a carbon allocation for the entire world, on the basis of a cut in man-made emissions of 60%. This total is then divided between countries based on the number of citizens that live in it. Over this century each country should reach its allocation. This would allow poor countries to increase their carbon output for the time being as they develop while the already industrialised countries adopt new clean technologies to reduce their carbon footprint. He calls it contraction and convergence. The idea has been widely praised as a possible way forward in inter-national negotiations but so far, for many countries, mostly the profligate emitters, it seems too tall an order." GLOBAL WARMING The Last Chance for Change Paul Brown 10 August 2013 - "I fully support C&C as the central framework." Don Brown Widener University School of Law Dear Aubrey; I fully support efforts to make contraction and convergence (C&C) the central framework for allocating national greenhouse gas emissions in the years ahead. C&C is also flexible enough to deal with several equity issues raised by others. Donald A. Brown Scholar In Residence, Sustainability Ethics and Law, Widener University School of Law. Climate Change Ethics - Don Brown In addition to these principles, over the last decade, several new emissions reductions frameworks have evolved, which have received widespread attention in the international community, particularly among non-government organizations participating in international climate change negotiations. These include allocation formulas called, "Contraction and Convergence" (C&C) and the "Greenhouse Development Rights" (GDR) framework. C&C was first proposed in 1990 by the London-based non-governmental Global Commons Institute (GCI 2010) (see Figure 6.3). Basically, C&C is not a prescription per se, but rather a way of demonstrating how a global prescription could be negotiated and organized in a way that ultimately levels off on the basis of equal per capita emissions (Meyer 2000) . Implementing C&C requires two steps. As a first step, countries must agree on a long-term global stabilization level for atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations as discussed in the last chapter. Once this is done a global greenhouse gas emissions budget can be calculated that would determine how many tonnes of greenhouse gases can be released into the atmosphere that will allow atmospheric concentrations to be stabilized. As a second step, countries need to negotiate a convergence date. That is, a date at which time the emissions allocated to each country should converge on equal per capita entitlements. During the transition period, a yearly global carbon budget is devised, which contracts gradually over time as the per capita entitlements of developed countries decrease while those of most developing countries increase. C&C would allow nations to achieve their per capita-based targets through trading from countries having excess allotments. And so, under C&C, nations eventually receive binding emissions reductions allocations that are distributed on the basis of equal per capita emissions for all humans. How to calculate greenhouse gas allocations between nations has always raised tensions between the developed and developing countries; the latter arguing that they have a right and need for economic development to help poor people rise above grinding poverty. In fact, international climate negotiation has been plagued by global North versus South conflicts. Poor developing nations have been deeply worried that climate change policies will exacerbate existing injustices between rich and poor nations if the poor countries' ability to develop economically is thwarted by limits on greenhouse gas emissions. The second allocation formula based upon equitable considerations is the GDR framework; a framework specifically designed to assure that poor people are not unfairly constrained in a world in which the global economy is constrained by limits on carbon (Baer et al. 2008). GDR begins with an ambitious emissions reduction pathway which, geared to the latest alarming evidence, has a relatively high probability of holding global warming below 2°C (Baer et al. 2008). GDR specifies that individuals whose income is below $7,500 are given the right to development. Under GDR these, by definition, poor individuals are not expected to help to pay the costs of the climate transition. Yet, individuals with incomes above the development threshold- by stipulation of GDR, the global consuming class- are thought of as having realized their right to development (Baer et al. 2008). Because of this, under GDR, they must shoulder the responsibility of curbing global carbon and the costs of adaptation from unavoidable climate change and compensation for climate damages (Baer et al. 2008). Although some governments and organizations have endorsed either C&C or GDR, these frameworks have not yet been seriously considered by governments as the basis for setting emissions reductions commitments during recent climate change negotiations despite high levels of interest in these two approaches among non-government organizations. In fact, most nations have continued to avoid linking their commitments to greenhouse gas emissions reduction to levels that take equity into account. Contraction and Convergence An equal per capita allocation, the ultimate goal of C&C, would be consistent with principles of justice because: (a) it treats all individuals as equals and, therefore, is consistent with theories of distributive justice, (b) it would implement the ethical maxim that all people should have equal rights to use global commons, (c) it would not be inconsistent with the widely accepted polluterpays principle, except perhaps with historical emissions, and (d) it could recognize the need of developing countries to increase their emissions to meet the basic needs of their citizens by negotiating when the convergence date would need to be achieved. Before allocating any carbon budget- a budget necessary to achieve a safe global atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases on the basis of equal per capita allocations- a case can be made that per capita emission levels should be adjusted to consider historical cumulative emissions. C&C has been criticized on the basis of its failure to deal effectively with historical emissions; a feature of C&C that could mean poor nations have insufficient levels of greenhouse gas emissions to allow them to use fossil fuels to economically grow out of poverty. Proponents of C&C have proposed some adjustments to C&C to deal with this limitation, including adjustments to the date of convergence and increased funding for adaptation to deal with this problem. And so as adjusted, C&C satisfies ethical scrutiny and can be seen as a way of operationalizing the meaning of equity under the UNFCCC. Greenhouse Development Rights The GDR framework discussed above also satisfies the minimum ethical criteria for allocating targets for national greenhouse gas emissions in that differences between national targets are based upon ethically relevant criteria, including basic needs of poor nations for economic development, the economic capacity of rich countries to invest in greenhouse gas-friendly technologies, and historical emissions considerations. Yet GDR is vulnerable to the criticism that the criteria it follows for determining economic prosperity levels- and, therefore, emission reduction obligations (for example the proposed $7,500 economic prosperity level that exempts some below it from emissions reduction targets)- are so arbitrary as to raise questions of distributive justice. Others have criticized GDR on the basis of its attempts to solve not only climate change, but also inequitable economic development. In so doing, GDR conflates two problems in such a way that it makes political agreement very unlikely (Kraus 2009). More specifically, Kraus argues that: In order to make GDRs fully operational, nations need to agree upon a number of matters including the emergency emissions trajectory, the precise level of the development threshold, the year when responsibility starts, the formula to calculate the RCI, and the respective weights of capacity and responsibility .... This reduces the transparency of the GDRs concept and significantly increases the necessary amount of data. Compared to GDRs, C&C has a higher degree of institutional feasibility. Due to its simplicity, C&C only requires data about emissions and population numbers of all nations. (Kraus 2009) Because of the increased complexity of negotiations that would be required to implement GDR, Kraus believes it is not politically feasible. Ethics would not support a formula that is almost impossible to implement. Of course, proponents of GDR deny that complexities of GDR create practical barriers to its adoption and implementation. And so GDR passes ethical scrutiny, although some practical problems need to be answered. Reviews Climate change raises some of the most profound ethical issues of our time. And yet, for thirty years our policy responses have evaded comprehensive ethical analysis. This book puts an end to this 'grave and unjust omission. However, the outstanding contribution of this book is its explanation of how ethical considerations can bring moral responsibility to the forefront of climate policy and action. Prue Taylor, University of Auckland, New Zealand Don Brown navigates the troubled waters of climate change denial. He deconstructs the cynical efforts by vested interests to pollute the public discourse by means of a climate change disinformation campaign. Brown also makes a compelling argument that limiting carbon emissions and mitigating climate change is the ethical imperative of our time. Michael Mann, Pennsylvania State University, USA In this fascinating book, Donald A. Brown draws on his vast experience to explore one of the great ethical issues of our time, and provides recommendations about how to bring ethical issues into the formulation of global warming policy responses. Richard Alley, Pennsylvania State University, USA Climate change is now the biggest challenge faced by humanity worldwide and ethics is the crucial missing component to the debate. The climate change threat is caused by the wealthiest of the world's population putting the most vulnerable at risk. The ethical dimension of climate change is therefore crucial, as the victims can only hope that those responsible for climate change will appreciate their obligation to the rest of the world and reduce their emissions accordingly. This book examines why a thirty-five-year discussion of human-induced warming has failed to acknowledge fundamental ethical concerns, and subjects climate change's most important policy questions to ethical analysis. Climate change is a global problem that requires a global solution, and given that many nations refuse participation due to perceived inequities of an international solution, this book explains why ensuring that nations, sub-national governments, organizations, businesses and individuals acknowledge and respond to their ethical obligations is both an ethical and practical mandate. The book examines the reasons why ethical principles have failed to gain traction in policy formation and recommends specific strategies to ensure that climate change policies are consistent with ethical principles. It is the first book of its kind to go beyond a mere account of relevant ethical questions to offer a pragmatic guide to how to make ethical principles relevant and integral to the world's response to climate change. Written by Donald A. Brown, a leading voice in the field, it should be of interest to policy makers, and those studying environmental policy, climate change policy, international relations, environmental ethics and philosophy. Donald A. Brown is Scholar in Residence on Sustainability Ethics and Law at Widener University School of Law, USA. Contraction & Convergence and Greenhouse Development Rights: A Critical Comparison Between Two Salient Climate-Ethical Concepts Taken together, the above suggests that GDRs performs worse against all of the four criteria. In its present form, GDRs is also inappropriate to implement the right to development and to solve the development crisis. Compared to GDRs, C&C is easier to negotiate and to implement, C&C has a higher potential to lead to a global climate compromise, C&C rests on less contestable ethical foundations, and has a higher potential to stimulate changes in public attitudes and awareness. All in all, C&C is the preferable concept. However, with a view to tackling the climate challenge, C&C should put more emphasis on the fact that in the future for many countries the conventional development path based on increasing economic growth and the consumption of fossil fuels will no longer be feasible. Climate change largely challenges prevalent international institutional control mechanisms. To overcome the climate crisis, it is therefore the more important to create a global atmosphere of trust as a basis for comprehensive cooperation across social, economic, and cultural divides. The image of a divided world which is in the centre of the GDRs Framework (e.g. Baer et al. 2008:91) may aptly describe reality but it may not show a vision of how to bridge the gap between rich and poor, North and South. C&C, however, evokes the image of a global community in which, under growing pressure, people in poor and rich countries alike act together to bring about a more careful and sustainable management of the atmosphere. However, a global climate partnership based on C&C will only be achieved once the obligation of rich countries to assist adaptation in poorer countries is duly recognized. This is not a question of charity but a question of justice and fairness. Climate Ethics Critical Analysis of Climate Science and Policy Rock Ethics Institute, Pennsylvania State University Because of the long phase-in time that would be required to move toward per capita allocations in the developed nations. those developing nations pushing for per capita allocation have proposed an approach usually re ferred to as 'contraction and convergence’. Contraction and convergence means an allocation that would allow the large emitter nations long enough time, perhaps thirty or forty years to contract their emissions through the replacement of greenhouse gas-emitting capital and infrastructure and eventually converge on a uniform per capita allocation. Support for contraction and convergence has been building around the world with the European Parliament in 1998 recently calling for its adoption with a 90 percent majority. A per capita allocation would be just for the following reasons: It treats all individuals as equals and therefore is consistent with theories of distributive justice It would implement the ethical maxim that all people should have equal rights to use a global commons. It would implement the widely accepted polluter-pays principle American heat: ethical problems with the United States’ response to global warming Donald A. Brown. Since most nations entered the Copenhagen and Cancun negotiations as if national interest rather than global responsibility to others was an adequate basis for national climate change policies, the commitments made under the Copenhagen Accord and Cancun agreements fail to satisfy equity criteria. In fact, in the lead-up to Copenhagen, most of the justifications for national commitments that had been announced by countries to reduce their emissions were exclusively focused on whether they met global goals to reduce GHG emissions unadjusted by equity considerations. There have been several proposals discussed by the international community about second commitment period frameworks that would expressly incorporate equity into future ghg emissions reductions pathways. Two such frameworks are known as “Contraction and Convergence” (C&C, 2009) and “Greenhouse Development Rights” (GDR) (Bear and Athanasiou, 2009) frameworks. In the lead-up to Copenhagen, all major GHG emitting nations ignored the C&C or GDR frameworks or any other comprehensive framework that took equity into account. In fact, the Copenhagen Accord and the Cancun agreements allowed each nation to identify its emissions reduction commitment based upon voluntary national considerations without regard to equity. An Ethical Analysis of the Cancun Climate Negotiations Outcome Donald A. Brown Associate Professor, Environmental Ethics, Science, and Law, Penn State University Associate Professor, Environmental Ethics, Science, And Law, Penn State 10 August 2013 - "Some form of C&C is essential." What's Wrong with Climate Politics & How to Change It. Paul Harris Several frameworks have been proposed to make people more explicit objects of climate cliplomacy. For example, Aubrey Meyer's concept of "contraction and convergence" effectively calls for setting an equal per capita allowance of greenhouse gas emissions, followed by a gradual contraction of emissions in nations where they are above the allowance and an increase in emissions for those below the allowance, to the point where emissions converge." While it is developed nations that are expected to contract and developing nations that will converge, what is unusual here is that the fundamental measure of which nations must do what is directly related to per capita emissions. Human beings are a bigger part of this proposal than in the standard approaches discussed in most of the climate change negotiations among nations. Some form of contraction and convergence is essential if the world's responses to climate change are to be fair over the long term. While there may be instances where some people are entitled to pollute the atmosphere more than others — for example, if they live in circumstances that require doing this as a means of survival — making such exceptions will require justification. What's Wrong with Climate Politics & How to Change It. Paul Harris 09 August 2013 - "C&C. What appears idealistic or naive is, alas, coldly realistic." Sustainable Systems Lebel Lorek Daniel Nothing less than a new global compact is necessary, one where the over-consumers of the world deliver significant reductions in resource throughput and material accumulation. this in order to create "ecological space" for increasing consumption by the world's poor - and where, in turn, the global under-consumers explore development paths of low-consumption high-prosperity living. This is Contraction and Convergence on a grand scale: Contraction of the consumption by the rich as the foundation for the convergence of consumption levels by all at some sustainable level. At first blush, any talk of contraction and convergence seems hopelessly naive. ("You'll never get the rich to cut back." is one reflexive response; "the poor will never show restraint" is another: Contraction and Convergence requires massive value change or some deep, mobilizing crisis" and "Americans will never sacrifice without a crisis" are other common reactions.) It's no wonder that most people who work on issues of sustainable consumption and production shy away from the question of "how much is enough?' Where, after all, are the potent research questions - those that generate grants, drive publications, or influence policy - if the desire for ever-escalating consumption is hard-wired in the human psyche or part of deeply held value sets? Who aspires to research and activism that is intrinsically coercive, or that would promote policies of reduced consumption that fly in the face of human desire? Better, many conclude, to focus on "realistic" and tangible responses to ecological overshoot, such as the development of new production technologies capable of accommodating escalating consumption and lower environmental cost, or economic instruments that might shift consumption toward more environmentally benign products, or education and public-information projects that might, over time re-shape values. And indeed, this is the bulk of the work now occurring under the flag of "sustainable consumption." What appears to be idealistic or naive is, alas, coldly realistic. Research Arena Three: Cementing an Environmental Politics of Time Famine For at least two important reasons, major environmental NGOs in the US have been slow to incorporate time politics" into their educational and policy agendas. Doing so would have diluted their core message of environmental protection during, a time of unusual government hostility toward environmental protection. It may have also alienated supporters for whom the connection between time famine and overcon­sumption is difficult to see. However, as issues of environmental well-being become increasingly linked to the dynamics of consumption. US environmentalism must become more open to confronting the fundamental drivers of overconsumption. TB YT's connection of "vacation rights" to coo-travel and nature appreciation is a first, critical step toward cultivating such openness. Moving beyond this first step won't happen easily or automatically. Recent voices within the US environmental community argue. For example, that "Apollo project" programs to develop new technologies of production and consumption must occupy the center of any move towards Contraction and Convergence. As tantalizing as these Promethean possibilities might be, they divert attention from the drivers of consumption, and of the ways in which structural change in work—leisure arrangements can slow the maddening treadmill of work and spend. If mainstream environmentalism is to stay focused on the connections between overwork and overconsumption, it will need considerable help from the research community, in at least the following three ways Building on "Vacation Rights" The "Right2Vacation- initiative argues that more paid vacation time will lead to lower work stress, reduced binge vacationing, higher levels of local civic participation, deeper connection to and appreciation of) local and regional environmental assets, and a growing political awareness of the benefits of trading income (and consumption) for leisure. These arguments are plausible on their face and enjoy some empirical support. Supporting research, however, is spread across several disciplines, dated, ill-matched to contemporary environmental concerns, or insufficiently robust to inform or motivate ambitious policy commitment by major environmental groups (and other political actors). There are significant opportunities, then, for the research community to synthe­size and extend existing knowledge about the impact of extended paid vacation on consumption, travel, and the cultivation of civic and environmental sensibili­ties. This work could begin with a review of the varied literatures to develop a "state of knowledge" overview and assessment. Further work might explore the interplay between additional vacation time and environmentally optimal out­comes, or identify mechanisms for framing or institutionalizing vacation time in ways that foster high-leisure, low consumption activities. Conceptual Brush-Clearing Regarding "Sacrifice" Do some kinds of reductions in material consumption yield increased happiness, while others do not? Probably so, but talking easily and naturally about these two categories proves difficult in a political and linguistic environment that reflexively equates all consumption reductions with dire sacrifice. Lacking are clear conceptual frame­works and an everyday language, supported by compelling everyday examples, that would allow policyrria.kers and environmental groups to easily distinguish (for themselves and a sometimes skeptical public) reductions in material throughput that are happiness expanding from those that arc not. Right2Vacation and TBYT are experiments in developing this sort of language — but these efforts remain less than intuitive, and their power over the popular vernacular of environmentalism remains unclear. What sorts of language and frames best convey the possibilities of reduced consumption in. service of human happiness? • Animating the "Base" TBYT and Rights Vacation are policy extensions of the voluntary simplicity movement. In some ways, both initiatives should have taken off long ago. After all, the available data suggest that at least a quarter of Americans are fundamentally sympathetic to notions of voluntary simplicity and time famine. The dilemma is that this base group of simplifiers sees political change as a function of individual acts of frugal consumption rather than the coordinated exercise of citizen power (another example of this can be found in Chapter 3, this volume). How can this group be "turned" toward a deeper engagement with citizen action, in support of TBYT's agenda? Thatss a surpris­ingly difficult question to answer. There has been scant systematic assessment in the last decade of public attitudes toward simplicity and entry points for fash­ioning action coalitions within this population. Little is known about the group­ings and composition of key social and culture groups, in either (or both) the global north and south, that may be most receptive to a message of consumer restraint, and thus most readily enlisted in a political program of policy change. The largest marketing-research organizations probably have some of this infor­mation; one research task, then, for any drive — national or transitional — toward a global norm of consumer restraint is to discern how to leverage these data. Another task is to develop a rough data base of the many research encleavors aimed at identifying those global constituencies most undermined or diminished by time famine and the decline of leisure time and civic consciousness. Perhaps by bringing together, in crude analytic ways, the conclusions and data of these myriad groups, important patterns will emerge that will facilitate a networking of key groups around the world and a joint identification of critical, and perhaps counterintuitive, constituencies. To what extent can determined activism bolstered by strategic research under­mine the view that happiness is linked to ever escalating consumption? How might public policy and new institutions that offer individuals and communities opportu­nities to consume less in ways that enhance immediate happiness and overall life satisfaction best be identified, and then injected squarely in the midst of public conversation? Where do the pressure points for a shift to sustainable consumption lie in a politics of the global north that celebrates consumption? And how, for the purposes of this volume, might additional research facilitate meaningful political change in support of an agenda of Contraction and Convergence? This chapter touches on these questions by exploring "Take Back Your Time (TBYT), a public- policy initiative now underway in the United States that aspires to build a participa­tory politics of consumption reduction. Built around the notion of "time famine," TBYT argues that politically constrained choices around work and leisure in the United States make it especially difficult for United States (US) consumers to exer­cise restraint in their consumption choices. If offered alternate choices, especially choices regarding the structure of work, Americans would consume less in the rational pursuit of their own happiness. Even modest success of TBYT's agenda would be an important step in a politics of Contraction and Convergence that rejects a discourse of sacrifice and deprivation. Sustainable Production Consumption Systems: Knowledge, Engagement and Practice Louis Lebel, Sylvia Lorek, Rajesh Daniel 09 August 2013 - "Tractate Shabbat - visionary C&C." Religion & the Politics of Peace & Conflict Hogan Lee Lehrke Princeton Tractate Shabbat translates into the latter-day case for a global equity per person in terms of carbon emissions, as conceived in Aubrey Meyer's Contraction and Convergence framework for combatting anthropgenic climate change. 08 August 2013 - "Plan B for Climate - Contraction and Convergence." Practical Advances in Petroleum Processing Hsu et al Plan B for Climate Control: Contraction and Convergence In 2002, the United States refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Australia soon followed suit. Near the end of 2003. the European Union, the Protocol's biggest supporter, reported that only two member states — Sweden and the UK — were on course to meet their targets. An article in New Scientist by Fred Pearce summarized his view of the Kyoto Protocol at the end of 2003. "The Kyoto Protocol is dying a death of a thousand cuts," he wrote. These blows follow a history cif bureaucratic squabbling and political posturing by the Protocol's signatories, and many observers now fear that it has been damaged beyond repair. So does the world have a Plan B for bringing the emissions of greenhouse gases under control? The answer is yes, and it goes by the name contraction and convergence' or C&C. The idea has been around for a decade, but lately it has been gaining ever more influential converts, such as the UK's Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, the UN Environment Programme, the European Parliament and the German Advisory Council on Global Change, which last week released a report supporting the idea..." Pearce goes on to say that while Kyoto has become a convoluted, short- term measure to mitigate climate change. C&C could provide a simple, fair, long-term solution. Under C&C, per capita emissions will converge, year by year, towards a common target_ In effect, after the target date, every person in the world would have an equal right to pollute. "On the face of it,' Pearce says, "C&C seems anathema to countries like the US, which would have to buy large numbers of pollution credits in the early years. But it does meet most of the criticisms made by the Bush administration of the Kyoto protocol." In particular, Bush called it unfair that Asian trading competitors_ as developing nations, had no targets. Under C&C every nation would ultimately have the same target. Some, such as China, already have per-capita emissions in excess of targets they might have to meet by mid-century. "But perhaps the greatest attraction of C&C is the complete break it would make from the horse-trading, short-term fixing and endless complications that have plagued efforts to bring the Kyoto Protocol into effect." lf the past can predict the future, polities will continue to dominate the debate about global warming until it becomes a clear and present danger If so, we hope there will still be time to do something about it. Practical Advances in Petroleum Processing, Volume 1 edited by Chang S. Hsu, Paul R. Robinson 08 August 2013 - "The argument for C&C is helpful. To live within limits necessitates reduction of brown economy." UNEP Economic Growth – the contentious topic that demands improved dialogue and understanding. The topic of ‘economic growth’ is a nuanced and highly charged debate depending on geography and stakeholder group. The perspectives are well known: - For many in the environment movement, if humanity is already living beyond planetary limits, a contraction of resource extraction needs to be coupled with ecosystem restoration. For these stakeholders, the science points to an imperative for negative economic growth. For most economic and business models, and therefore national governments, growth is a vital means by which to balance national debts, remain competitive, pay taxes and wage bills, and have surpluses to re-invest. ‘No growth’ is therefore not an option. For much of the developing world, struggling under the burden of poverty, economic growth is needed in order to raise standards of living. Economic growth is therefore also essential. There are a number mutually reinforcing ways to tackle this impasse. The concept of ‘green growth’ is helpful but to live within limits necessitates a net reduction in brown economy. The argument for ‘contraction and convergence’ is also helpful – the developing world needs to grow economic activity, the developed world needs to grow economic solutions that replace resource intensive solutions. This is prompting the emergence of the concept of a circular economy – where closing the loop around production and consumption will create innovation and growth in new industries and services, with the explicit purpose of reducing material inputs and wastes. Another way into the argument is that we need to redefine growth itself to mean growth of quality. This is why the beyond GDP agenda is so vital. An example of beyond GDP economic growth would be to develop new markets and solutions for natural system management – which creates employment, revenues, taxes, and improves natural systems. Finally, by getting stuck on the horns of ‘grow’ or ‘don’t grow’, we risk missing an important point. A more equitable and efficient distribution of assets, can help provide for more people’s needs with the same resources we use today. That is a further reason why Green Economy, beyond the moral imperative, must champion equity. UNEP Perspectives BUILDING THE BIG PICTURE FOR A GREEN ECONOMY By the Green Economy Coalition - Oliver Greenfield and Emily Benson 07 August 2013 - "C&C offers a realistic opportunity for a North-South deal." Climate Justice - Rachel Carson Centre Dear Aubrey With pleasure I support your initiative. With all the best wishes Markus Vogt Contraction and convergence One of the most interesting concepts for a common contract on CO2 justice is currently being debated under the title contraction and convergence (C&C). This combines a contract which fixes an upper limit for global CO2 emissions (contraction) with a gradual introduction of a distribution of emission rights according to egalitarian principles (convergence). Basis for the fixing of a global upper limit is consensus within society about level of the ecological risk that can be justified. However, ecological risks can neither be calculated from a natural threshold nor predicted with any certainty. And yet there is a broadly accepted consensus within current political negotiations that global warming by 2°C or a 450ppm concentration of CO2 can be taken as just such a threshold. 56 Following the principle of risk avoidance the C&C concept uses this rather low upper limit, although climate researchers disagree as to whether it is still a realistic goal. For the process of negotiating CO2 reduction rates the C&C concept accepts the historical distribution as the basis for proportionally-fixed contributions (grandfathering). This is however only the starting point for what then becomes a process with fixed and binding stages, aimed at gradually drawing closer to an egalitarian pro capita distribution of emission rights. The grandfathering principle eases the transition for countries with a high level of emissions. It can be justified ethically as property protection and pragmatism. “And while a convergence that begins with grandfathering can be ethically justified as easing the transition on high-emitting countries, consistency would seem to demand a similar ‘back end’ mechanism by which emission in low-emitting countries would be allowed to temporarily overshoot the global average, if, that is, ‘easing the transition’ is indeed the justification for initial grandfathering.” The post-Kyoto negotiations have not yet reached a decision between the two types of model described here as contraction and convergence and responsibility and capacity. C&C offers a realistic opportunity for strategic north-south alliances and is currently enjoying growing support, for example in Great Britain. Climate Justice - An ethical analysis of the conflicts, rights and incentives surrounding CO2 by Prof. Dr. Markus Vogt, LMU Munich   07 August 2013 - "The lack of success with alternatives continues to make C&C attractive." The Converge Project January 2013 Recommendation SCAD takes this opportunity to congratulate and thank everyone who is involved in the preparation of the CONVERGE initiative e-book for the use of the wider public. We, SCAD, as part of the CONVERGE team want to ensure CONVERGE reaches the public in our region and the whole country. SCAD initiates various environmental and community engagements to create a just society in the region. Providing equal opportunities for every member of society is ensured through SCAD sustainable development initiatives. To mitigate climate change and other environment-related problems in a rapidly growing country like India is a herculean task. The growth of the country is decided by various factors and the issue needs to be addressed globally. "Climate change is a global challenge to which global solutions are required" With the support of The Converging World Charity UK and the Schumacher Institute Bristol, and other charities and development agencies in UK and Europe, SCAD initiates various sustainable energy and development programmes. We strongly believe that equity-based models such as Contraction and Convergence can play a vital role in helping to manage global environmental problems. Contraction and Convergence m means that every country should bring its per capita emissions to a level which is equal to all other countries. It is intended to form the basis of an international agreement which will reduce carbon dioxide emissions to avoid dangerous climate change, carbon dioxide being the gas that is primarily responsible for changes in the greenhouse on Earth, We also strongly believe that a lot of initiatives need to be done on stabilizing atmospheric CO2 concentrations at 3so parts per million by volume. We also agree with the importance of the following words: "No one owns the atmosphere, yet we all need it. So we can assume that we all have an equal right to its services - an equal right to pollute on the basis of the minimum cuts in total carbon dioxide pollution needed to stabilize the climate," Taking this into consideration, SCAD wants to help create more equitable models for managing the benefits and costs of resources that are in line with what we know about planetary limits - which will ensure a safe living environment for the community, ensure women's rights, reduce food miles by growing local food through kitchen gardens, includes afforestation programmes to cope up with the climate adaptation methods, water harvesting to overcome desertification and sustainable energy initiatives to ensure less carbon is emitted. We are sure that the CONVERGE team is documenting community initiatives like this into CONVERGE deliverables which can be used by the wider public, We are extremely happy that we are part of the team and also members from the developing country to make Convergence into a model for a future sustainable world. Thanking you, Dr. S. Cletus Babu Chairman SCAD A very brief review of literature: the background 'Convergence' has been a subject of study in economics literature since the mid 1980's in terms of trends in distribution of world per capita income and productivity (Abramovitz 1986, Baumol 1986, Sutcliffe 2005), However, the concept of Contraction and Convergence TM to which we refer in this document and the CONVERGE project originated with Aubrey Meyer and The Global Commons Institute (GCI). Contraction and Convergence TM (C&C TM) is a global climate policy framework which has been proposed to the UN since 1990 by the Global Commons Institute as one way to manage and reduce anthropogenic carbon dioxide through a burden sharing approach (Meyer woo). C&CTM proposes combining recognition of planetary limits with an equity approach to distribution in the following format: (a) Establishing a full-term contraction budget (a 'cap') for global emissions consistent with stabilising atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) at a pre-agreed concentration maximum deemed to be safe by the UNFCCC1, and: (b) The international sharing of this budget as a pre-distribution of entitlements that result from a negotiable rate of linear convergence to equal shares per person globally by an agreed date2. The framework would be given flesh and blood through the setting of interim carbon reduction targets, drawing up of national de-carbonization strategies and a carbon trading scheme to allow a degree of flexibility to account for national differences in carbon intensity. That the C&C TM concept has gained substantial traction and recognition since the foundation of the Global Commons Institute in 1990 in the national and international policymaking and decision-making arena can be recognised in the following quotation from the executive secretary of the pre-eminent international climate change treaty, The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; 'Achieving the goal or the climate treaty [to stabilize Greenhouse gas emissions] inevitably requires Contraction &Convergence" (Waller Hunter, UNFCCC Executive Secretary, in CCP, p.1). C&CTM has been both implicitly and explicitly credited with influencing both the Kyoto Protocol and its successor, The principle of C&CTm has been formally recognised in European Parliament resolutions (European Parliament 1998) and is supported by numerous policy makers, academics, NGOs and lay people. One of the advantages of the C&C TM proposal is the recognition that any effective and sustainable response to slowing the rise in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere inevitably requires addressing the issue of equity - who should reduce carbon emissions and by how much? C&CTM effectively slices the Gordian knot of allocating responsibility for cutting carbon dioxide emissions by proposing a global per capita allocation solution (a so-called 'strong equity' approach) which also takes account of the issue of the 'historical responsibility' of industrialised nations through its proposal for negotiated rate of convergence. Many scientists and pol icy makershave come to consider this approach to b e not only the mostequitable but al so the most pragmatic approach to managing climate change when compared to other carbon reduction regimes: according to Bohringer and Welsch (2004; see also Berk and den Elzen 2 0 01) who examined the implications on economic welfare ofvarious approaches to emissions reduction "a Converge approach to crass ions tracl ing stands oat for offering thedeveloping countries substant iai incentives for participation in the international greenhouse gas abatement effort without imposing excessive burdens on industrialised countries" (p. 21.), and is therefore the most acceptable arrangement. Despite this positive review, criticisms and contrasting views of the viability of the C&C TM approach are easy to find, and generally concern procedural issues (i.e. concerns with implementation) although substantive criticism also exist'. Allocation of carbon emission entitlements/the nature of burden-sharing or differentiation of future commitments tends to be highly controversial, The results of adopting a strong equality (per capita) approach to emission rights with a short time frame for emission contractions could induce deep structural changes to the global economy, which in some arenas has caused doubts about how realistic it is for a C&CTM approach to be accepted in the timeframe needed to prevent substantial climate-change induced damage (Aldy 2005). The diversity of negotiating positions over the emission rights of nation states was formally documented in article 3.1 of the LINFCCC, which states that developed and developing countries have "common but differentiated responsibilities" (Article 3.1) and is reflected in the much lamented failure to agree on internationally binding carbon contraction goals at the Copenhagen Summit in 20092. The C&C TM approach thus runs counter to current policymaking efforts which have tended to focus on an 'increasing participation/ graduation' approach to meeting carbon targets by simply extending the current carbon regimes to encompass more countries based on ad hoc criteria or pre-defined rules. A fuller comparison of the Contraction and ConvergenceTm approach contrasted with greenhouse gas development rights is provided by Kraus (2009). A further criticism that has been levelled at C&CTM is that per capita based allocation rights might promote national pro-population growth policies. As a solution to this, Meyer (2000) suggests a cut off year after which population growth is no longer factored in to carbon allowances. Despite the above criticisms, the potentially severe impacts of climate change (IPCC 2007) and the resounding lack of success of alternative approaches to decreasing carbon emissions continue to make the C&C TM approach attractive. Furthermore, the need to recognise planetary and ecosystem limits and ensure more equal access to resources and the benefits they provide (as well as to more equally share burdens) has become more pronounced'. The C&C TM proposition suggests a way to meet these needs. To summarize, the CONVERGE project focus on equity and equality based approaches to managing resources derives partly from the carbon reduction framework called 'Contraction and Convergence' (C&C TM), as described above. Our most important objective (as shown in Figure 5) is to link the scientifically-validated need to reduce (i.e. to contract) resource use with a justice-based approach to apportioning the responsibility for doing so (to converge). 07 August 2013 - "C&C all countries particpate." Most frequently cited model Energy Policy van Ruijven et all In the contraction and convergence (C&C) regime (Meyer, 2000), all countries participate with quantified emission targets. In a first step, countries agree on a path of future global emissions that leads to an agreed long-term stabilisation level for greenhouse gas concentrations (‘contraction’). In a second step, the targets for individual countries are set so that per capita emissions converge from the current level of the country to a level equal for all countries within a convergence period (‘convergence’). The convergence is calculated in a way that resulting global emissions follow the agreed global emission path. This regime is based on both the sovereignty and egalitarian equity principles, as first allowances are based on current emission levels but in time, equal emissions per capita is the dominant factor on which allowances are based. As the problem definition is based on resource sharing, some developing countries could be allocated more (surplus) emission allowances than their expected baseline emissions. Emission allowances and mitigation costs of China and India resulting from different effort-sharing approaches Bas J. van Ruijven a,n, Matthias Weitzel b, Michel G.J. den Elzen a, Andries F. Hof a, Detlef P. van Vuuren a,c, Sonja Peterson b, Daiju Narita b a PBL—Netherlands Environment Assessment Agency, P.O. Box 1, 3720 BA Bilthoven, The Netherlands b Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Hindenburgufer 66, D-24105 Kiel, Germany c Utrecht University, Department of Geosciences, P.O. Box 80021, 3508 TA Utrecht, The Netherlands Energy Policy 07 August 2013 - "State of the Climate 2012." NOAAA/American Meteorological Society as reported in the Huffington Post American Meteorological Society State of the Climate 2012 Reported in the Huffington Post WASHINGTON -- A new massive federal study says the world in 2012 sweltered with continued signs of climate change. Rising sea levels, snow melt, heat buildup in the oceans, and melting Arctic sea ice and Greenland ice sheets, all broke or nearly broke records, but temperatures only sneaked into the top 10. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Tuesday issued a peer-reviewed 260-page report, which agency chief Kathryn Sullivan calls its annual "checking on the pulse of the planet." The report, written by 384 scientists around the world, compiles data already released, but it puts them in context of what's been happening to Earth over decades. "It's critically important to compile a big picture," National Climatic Data Center director Tom Karl says. "The signs that we see are of a warming world." Sullivan says what is noticeable "are remarkable changes in key climate indicators," mentioning dramatic spikes in ocean heat content, a record melt of Arctic sea ice in the summer, and whopping temporary melts of ice in most of Greenland last year. The data also shows a record-high sea level. The most noticeable and startling changes seen were in the Arctic, says report co-editor Deke Arndt, climate monitoring chief at the data center. Breaking records in the Arctic is so common that it is becoming the new normal, says study co-author Jackie Richter-Menge of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers' Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, N.H. Karl says when looked at together, all the indicators show a climate that is changing over the decades. Individually, however, the story isn't as simple. Karl says surface temperatures haven't risen in the last 10 years, but he notes that is only a blip in time due to natural variability. When looking at more scientifically meaningful time frames of 30 years, 50 years and more than 100 years, temperatures are rising quite a bit, Karl said. Since records have been kept in 1880, all 10 of the warmest years ever have been in the past 15 years, NOAA records show. Depending on which of four independent analyses are used, 2012 ranked the eighth or ninth warmest year on record, the report says. Last year was warmer than every year in the previous century, except for 1998 when a record El Nino spiked temperatures globally. NOAA ranks 2010 as the warmest year on record. They don't have to be records every year, Karl says. Overall the climate indicators "are all singing the same song that we live in a warming world," Arndt says. "Some indicators take a few years off from their increase. The system is telling us in more than one place we're seeing rapid change." While the report purposely doesn't address why the world is warming, "the causes are primarily greenhouse gases, the burning of fossil fuels," Arndt says. The study is being published in a special edition of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 07 August 2013 - "C&C preferable if intra- & inter-generational justice apply." Carbon Pricing, Larry Kreiser, Ana Yabar Sterling While the optimal level of pollution is impossible to determine exactly by economics, cost—benefit analyses can help approximating a reasonable level (Stern 2007). In any case, the cap must create scarcity in order to implement a price signal for individual emitters' internal emission level optimization. Greater scarcity increases the incentives to innovate. By fixing an adequate cap size, also, the open access resource is transformed into state property and the scale decision is made independent of distri­bution and allocation, allowing the government to prevent abuses of the resource. In addition, other criteria, such as environmental necessities or fairness criteria, can be used, thus lowering decision-making costs. From an ecological point of view, the cap must be in line with the needs for global climate protection, e.g. the 2'C target. By using the Budget Approach (WBGU 2009), a total allowable amount of emissions of 1,100 billion tons of CO2eq for the period of 1990 to 2050 can be calculated, which, due to emissions in the past, !eaves only 600 billion tons of emis­sions for the period 2010 to 2050. If, then, for justice reasons (equality, polluter-pays principle) equal rights to use natural resources for each and every citizen or the world are accepted, national emission caps can be derived immediately, and even historic responsibilities can be accounted for following the polluter-pays-principle. If, however, intra- and inter-generational justice should apply, the 'Contraction & Convergence' (Meyer 2000) appears preferable, in which the total number of emission allow­ances contracts from the status quo to an ecologically acceptable level, and per-capita emission rights converge. This would result in a steep decrease in the cap sizes of industrialized countries, while less developed countries might even increase their emissions. Anyway, a stringent abso­lute cap would support inter-generational justice, because future genera­tions would be safeguarded against dramatic changes in their livelihood. However, all too stringent caps may interfere with intra-generational justice, for example, because due to the regressive distributional effects of higher energy prices, poorer households may be faced with high burdens. Again, the Contraction and Convergence proposal would, at least to a large extent, take account of those restrictions.| Carbon Pricing, Growth and the Environment Larry Kreiser, Ana Yabar Sterling 06 August 2013 - "EDP & strong International C&C Protocols." Combine Bottom-up/Top-Down The Transition Companion. Hopkins 04 August 2013 - "No political challenge can be met by shopping. We are forced to raise boring constraints like C&C." Authors of Objective Proficiency quote and then interrogate this article by George Monbiot Now l‘m as environmentally concerned as the next man, probably more so, in fact, but a spate of new books urging us to live ‘better, greener life-styles’ and to ’live within nature's limits' leaves me rather cold. Evidently, it's easy. Buy products that don't exploit other humans, animals, or the environment. Don‘t shop at the multinational supermarkets, support small shops which sell environmentally friendly products, buy local produce when you need to and, while you're about it, just make your own bread, butter, cheese, jam, keep a milking cow, a few pigs, goats, chickens, bee hives, gardens and orchards. Well, what are you waiting for? The book ‘A Slice of Organic Life’ by Scheherazade Goldsmith contains plenty of useful advice and she comes across as modest, sincere and well-informed. Out of lobbying for political change, there is not a word. According to Goldsmith, you can save the planet from your own kitchen if you have endless time and plenty of land. When l was reading it on the train, another passenger asked me if he could take a look. He flicked through it for a moment and then summed up the problem in seven words: 'this is for people who don’t work.’ The media's obsession with beauty, wealth and fame blights every issue it touches, but none more so than green issues. There is an inherent conflict between the aspirational lifestyle journalism that makes readers feel better about themselves and sells country-style kitchens to those who can afford them, and the central demand of environmentalism - that we should consume less. ‘None of these changes represents a sacrifice! Goldsmith tells us. ‘Being more conscientious isn't about giving up things.‘ But it is if like her, you own more than one home when others have none. Uncomfortable as this is for both the media and its advertisers, giving things up is an essential component of going green. A section on ethical shopping in Goldsmith‘s book advises us to buy organic, buy seasonal, buy local, buy sustainable, buy recycled. But it says nothing about buying less. Green consumerism is becoming a pox on the planet for it merely swapped the damaging goods we buy for less damaging ones, I would champion it. But two parallel markets are developing - one for unethical products and one for ethical products, and the expansion of the second does little to hinder the growth of the first. I am now drowning in a tide of eco-junk.  Over the past six months, l have come to learn that organic cotton bags-filled with packets of ginseng tea and jojoba oil bath salts are now the obligatory gift at every environmental event. I have several lifetimes’ supply of ballpoint pens made with recycled paper and about half a dozen miniature solar chargers for gadgets that l do not possess. Last week one leading newspaper told its readers not to abandon the fight to save the planet. “There is still hope, and the middle classes, with their composters and eco-gadgets, will be leading the way.” It made some helpful suggestions, such as a ‘hydrogen-powered model racing car‘, which, for £74.99, comes with a solar panel, an electrolyser and a fuel cell. One wonders what rare metals and energy-intensive processes were used to manufacture it. In the name of environmental consciousness, we have simply created new opportunities for surplus capital. But, there is another danger with ethical shopping. I have met house owners who have bought solar panels and wind turbines before they have done the simple thing and insulated their lofts, partly because they love gadgets but partly, l suspect, because everyone can then see how conscientious and how rich they are. We are often told that buying such products encourages us to think more widely about environmental challenges, but it is just as likely to be depoliticising. Green consumerism is a substitute for collective action. No political challenge can be met by shopping. Challenge the new green consumerism and you become a prig and a party pooper. Against the shiny new world of organic aspirations you are forced to raise boring restraints: carbon rationing, contraction and convergence, tougher building regulations, coach lanes on motorways. No newspaper will carry an article about that. But these measures, and the long hard political battle that is needed to bring them about, are unfortunately what is required. 1 By using the phrase ‘Well. what are you waiting for?’ (lines ll-12), the writer is emphasising A the impossibility of what is being proposed. B the urgency of the environmental problem. C how unclear it is as to what action is required. D how long it will take to change people's mindsets. 2 In the third paragraph, the writer disagrees with Scheherazade Goldsmith on A how people will react to being told how to run their lives. B how the media can best promote the concept of ethical shopping. C the need for the media to get involved in environmental matters. D the need for people to make sacrifices. 3 What is the writer saying in the fourth paragraph about the growth of ethical products? A lt has a part to play in limiting waste. B It goes hand-in-hand with lack of quality. C lt creates its own unnecessary demand. D lt results in items that are ever more expensive. 4 What irony does the writer pick up on in the fifth paragraph? A The supposedly ‘green’ substance used to fuel the car is harmful. B The production of the car contributes to environmental damage. C The cost of the car puts it beyond the reach of those who would benefit from it. D The target market for the car is people who cause the most environmental problems. 5 What is the ‘danger with ethical shopping’ that the writer refers to in the sixth paragraph? A lt may lead to unfair situations. B It could become a political tool. C lt is becoming a signifier of social status. D It encourages us to save money in the wrong areas. 6 What is the writer's position on ethical shopping in the article as a whole? A It has become a plaything for the super rich. B There is very little in it which is new or relevant. C It has served its purpose and should now be replaced. D There is a better way of tackling environmental issues. 04 August 2013 - "Emissions must reach zero well within this Century." Richard J Somerville Scripps Institute of Oceanography To have a reasonable chance of meeting this 2 degree Celsius goal, the science shows that global emissions of heat-trapping gases and particles must peak soon and then start to decline rapidly, not in 50 or 100 years, but within the next 5 to 10 years, reaching near zero well within this century. Given the 2 degree Celsius goal already agreed to by many governments, the case for great urgency in taking meaningful actions to reduce emissions is a consequence of science. It is based on facts and evidence. It is not an ideological or political choice. We have a window of time within which we simply must act if we are serious about meeting the 2 degree Celsius goal. The window is still open, but it will soon close and will then remain closed. Richard J Somerville Scripps Institute of Oceanography 04 August 2013 - "GP commitment to C&C would be undermined if we protect our affluence at the expense of others." Tom Chance I believe it is unjust to move to an ecologically sustainable economy through nationalistic discrimination. We shouldn’t say “you can’t come and enjoy our lifestyles”. We have to find an equitable way for us all to enjoy a decent quality of life within the planet’s constraints. The Green Party’s longstanding commitment to the principle of contraction and convergence would be undermined if we sought to protect our own affluence and suppress that of others. 04 August 2013 - "C&C is what we have been wating for." An Introduction to Human Geography Daniels Bradshaw Shaw Sidway There is an alternative on the table: this is known as Contraction and Convergence [C&C]. At COP-9 in Milan many representatives admitted privately that C&C was what they had been waiting for. Contraction means that greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced globally, resulting in dramatic cuts globally during the next half Century. Convergence would see each country’s emissions reduced, until by 2050 according to authorities in the UK and Germany, everybody would have an equal right to pollute – the amount being 0.3 tonnes carbon per person. Carbon trading permits would help the heaviest polluters to reduce their emissions rapidly. C&C also overcame the USA’s objection to Kyoto, which is that their Asian competitors such as China and India have no emissions reduction targets. Some environmentalists and politicians are now beginning to regard Kyoto as an obstacle not a solution; it remains to be seen whether they say the same about C&C if the world adopts that route. An Introduction to Human Geography: Issues for the 21st Century Prof Peter Daniels Prof Michael Bradshaw Dr Denis Shaw Prof James Sidaway 04 August 2013 - "C&C a constitutional framework for arrest of GHG." Health & Human Rights Grodin, Tarantola, Annas, Gruskin The best known rights-based approach to climate change mitigation is the 'contraction-and-convergence' [C&C] frame-work presented by the Global Commons Institute [GCI] at the second Conference of the Parties in 1996. The idea, very briefly, was to articulate a long-term mitigation regime that, while reducing the overall amount of greenhouse gas in use over time, would also equalise greenhouse gas emissions per person on a global scale over time. In such a regime, as overall global emissions dropped, the fall would be more precipitate in wealthy countries, while usage in poorer countries would continue to rise for a period in line with their greater development needs—towards convergence between rich and poor countries at some point in the future. Initially, GCI abjured the term “rights” in reference to C&C because they regarded the atmosphere as a global commons that “cannot be appropriated by any state or person”. Today, however, GCI claims that C&C “establishes a constitutional, global-equal-rights-based framework for the arrest of greenhouse gas emissions”. This appears to be in line with a general shift towards the language of rights in the climate change arena. Health and Human Rights in a Changing World Grodin, Taratola, Annas, Gruskin 04 August 2103 - "A non-imperialistic world solution depends on C&C." Environmental Sociology King McCarthy Auriffeille Globally, the struggle, of course, has to take into account the reality of economic and ecological imperialism. The allowable carbon-concentration limits of the atmosphere have already been taken up as a result of the accumulation of the rich states at the center of the world system. The economic and social development of poor countries is, therefore, now being further limited by the pressing need to impose restrictions on carbon emissions for the sake of the planet as a whole—despite the fact that underdeveloped economies had no role in the creation of the problem. The global South is likely to experience the effects of climate change much earlier and more severely than the North, and has fewer economic resources with which to adapt. All of this means that a non-imperialistic, and more sustainable, world solution depends initially on what is called 'contraction and convergence'—a drastic contraction in greenhouse gas emissions overall (especially in the rich countries), coupled with the convergence of per-capita emissions in all countries at levels that are sustainable for the planet.“ Since, however, science suggests that even low greenhouse gas emissions may be unsustainable over the long run, strategies have to be developed to make it economically feasible for countries in the periphery to introduce solar and renewable technologies— reinforcing those necessary radical changes in social relations that will allow them to stabilize and reduce their emissions. For the anti-imperialist movement, a major task should be creating stepped-up opposition to military spending [amounting to a trillion dollars in the United States in 200?) and ending government subsidies to global agribusiness—with the goal of shifting those monies into environmental defense and the meeting of the social needs of the poorest countries, as suggested by the Bamako Appeal.“ It must be firmly established as a principle of world justice that the wealthy countries owe an enormous ecological debt to poorer coun-tries, due to the robbing by the imperial powers of the global commons and the pillage of the periphery at every stage of world capitalist development. Environmental Sociology Leslie King Deborah McCarthy Auriffeille 03 August 2013 - "North Pole melting leaves a small 'lake' at the top of the world". Huffington Post North Pole Melting Leaves Small Lake at the Top of the World - Huffington Post 03 August 2013 - "IPCC chickened out, systematically in a cowardly way." Arctic Death Spiral, Peter Wadhams FT Weekend edition. "One doesn’t need to look far to find IPCC scientists who are – for different reasons – even less flattering about some of its work, including one helping to shape the latest assessment. Peter Wadhams, a leading expert on Arctic sea ice at Cambridge university, is a review editor on the new Working Group I report. He was pleased to be involved with this one because he was so upset about certain aspects of the last IPCC assessment in 2007. “They made a couple of real clangers there,” he said gloomily, staring around his cluttered lair in the university’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. One was a contentious decision not to include a best estimate for future sea level rises because it was thought the potential impact of ice sheets was still too poorly understood. Wadhams, along with other critics, believes this led to a serious underestimate of how high sea levels will rise. “They just chickened out,” he fumes. “I mean, in a really systematically cowardly way. And it shows how naive these scientists are or how terrified of sticking their neck out.” Thomas Stocker, who had a hand in drafting that earlier report, said uncertainties about how the ice sheets were changing made it impossible to include them in the way Wadhams thought they should have been. “Our purpose in AR4 [the earlier assessment] was not to report the highest numbers which would make headlines, but it was to report the numbers that we can defend,” he said. But Wadhams is even angrier about another line in that last IPCC report suggesting it could take until the latter part of this century before Arctic summer sea ice disappears almost entirely. The sea ice that covers much of the North Pole always melts a little in summer and then refreezes as winter sets in. Last summer, however, it shrank to its lowest point in more than 30 years, a much more dramatic decline than predicted. Wadhams thinks it more likely that its summer sea ice will vanish as soon as 2015. “It could even be this year or next year but not later than 2015 there won’t be any ice in the Arctic in the summer,” he said, pulling out a battered laptop to show a diagram explaining his calculations, which he calls “the Arctic death spiral”." Excerpt from full article in the FT 03 August 2013 -"C&C - The only just and sustainable solution." Planetary Emergency, Monthly Review "It follows that the downsizing of ecological footprints to get the world back in accord with environmental limits must necessarily fall very disproportionately on the rich capitalist countries. The only just and sustainable solution is one of contraction and convergence, whereby global per capita carbon emissions and ecological footprints are equalized, along with the elimination of unequal ecological exchange." The Planetary Emergency John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark 03 August 2013 - "Delay means that warming becomes locked in." 4 Former US Environment Protection Agency Chiefs in NYT "There is no longer any credible scientific debate about the basic facts: our world continues to warm, with the last decade the hottest in modern records, and the deep ocean warming faster than the earth’s atmosphere. Sea level is rising. Arctic Sea ice is melting years faster than projected. The costs of inaction are undeniable. The lines of scientific evidence grow only stronger and more numerous. And the window of time remaining to act is growing smaller: delay could mean that warming becomes 'locked in'. Mr. Obama’s plan is just a start. More will be required. But we must continue efforts to reduce the climate-altering pollutants that threaten our planet. The only uncertainty about our warming world is how bad the changes will get, and how soon. What is most clear is that there is no time to waste.” A Republican Case for Climate Action By WILLIAM D. RUCKELSHAUS, LEE M. THOMAS, WILLIAM K. REILLY and CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN EACH of us took turns over the past 43 years running the Environmental Protection Agency. We served Republican presidents, but we have a message that transcends political affiliation: the United States must move now on substantive steps to curb climate change, at home and internationally. [Thanks for the Heads-up on this to Laurie Barlow Civitas California]. 02 August 2013 - Quantifying the Influence of Climate on Human Conflict - Science Express and AAAS Quantifying the Influence of Climate on Human Conflict A rapidly growing body of research examines whether human conflict can be affected by climatic changes. Drawing from archeology, criminology, economics, geography, history, political science, and psychology, we assemble and analyze the 60 most rigorous quantitative studies and document, for the first time, a remarkable convergence of results. We find strong causal evidence linking climatic events to human conflict across a range of spatial and temporal scales and across all major regions of the world. The magnitude of climate's influence is substantial: for each 1 standard deviation (1σ) change in climate toward warmer temperatures or more extreme rainfall, median estimates indicate that the frequency of interpersonal violence rises 4% and the frequency of intergroup conflict rises 14%. Because locations throughout the inhabited world are expected to warm 2-4σ by 2050, amplified rates of human conflict could represent a large and critical impact of anthropogenic climate change. Solomon M. Hsiang,1,2*†‡ Marshall Burke,3† Edward Miguel2,4 1Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA. 2National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. 3Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. 4Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. *Present address: Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. †These authors contributed equally to this work. ‡Corresponding author. E-mail: shsiang@berkeley.edu