31 October 2013 - "One Planet Initiative & SDC London adopts C&C Principle" "The One Planet initiative adopts the principle of Contraction and Convergence which means that countries with high per capita emissions will have to reduce their emissions much more rapidly than countries that currently have low per capita emissions. The end result being that per capita emissions from each country will converge at a more equitable level and the global total of emissions will contract. BioRegional will work with partners to agree community specific trajectories. For example, for communities in developing countries a suitable trajectory will have to take into account whether the development is targeted at residents with high impact lifestyles or very low income residents with low carbon emissions." Common International Targets January 2011 ONE PLANET COMMUNITIES The UK Climate Change Act target of an 80% reduction in CO2 by 2050 and the London Climate Change Action Plan target of a 60% cut by 2025 are both broadly based on the Contraction and Convergence model in which by 2050 everyone in the world would be entitled to an equal share of emissions with the aim of atmospheric CO2 concentrations not exceeding 450ppm. This entitlement is roughly equivalent to two tonnes of CO2 per person each year. Capital consumption – the transition to sustainable consumption and production in London 31 October 2013 - "Fine Wonderful Brilliant Excellent Incredible" Strongly favourable response so far to CBAT 'Do the Maths' . . . Some strongly favourable responses to CBAT so far . . . Some Responses to CBAT   BACK TO ALL INFO POINTS DOMAIN 1 BACK TO CBAT Graphic User Interface [GUI] 31 October 2013 - CBAT provides us [incl policy-makers] with 2.4 million options of C&C combinations [at finger-tip control] When CBAT Domain Two [mouse-click multi-colour icon left-hand side] is fully operational: - it will have a 'Table' floating on-screen reading off: - values arising in Gt C for the globe divided into 6 regions as follows: - USA [grey] OECD minus the USA [green] Former Soviet Union [FSU in white] China [yellow] India [orange] Rest of World [ROW in dark blue] for periods: - before convergence starts [2010 to start-date - here 2015] while convergence lasts [from start-date to end-date - here 2030] after convergence ends [from end-date to 2110] from any user-choices made from Slider-use, that will look like this: - . . . where the user-choices: - For any 'Carbon-Budget' using the Vertical Slider for Domain One and For any 'Convergence-Window' using the Horzontal Sliders in Domain Two  the Table of values shown in the image above for all values arising will be adjusting to read any Domain One/Domain Two combinations chosen by the CBAT-user. That means that for any relevant rate of Contraction with any rate of Convergence arising, CBAT will instantly calculate and display charts and table-values in Gt C from any of the: - Three Carbon Budgets, [three buttons LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH, top right] multiplied by 80 positions each [from +40 to -40 - VERTICAL SLIDER] multiplied by Any convergence start-date [2010-2110 - HORIZONTAL SLIDER] multiplied by Any convergence end-date [2010-2110 or 100 years] [HORIZONTAL SLIDER] . . . giving 2.4 million 'C&C' Carbon-Budget user-options, where 'Contraction and Convergence' TOTALS in the Vertical Slider Clock on the right and the on-screen Table are the same. This means that the 'Budget-Total-Clock' on Vertical Slider and the 'Budget-Total' in the Table will always show the same quantity of Gigatonnes of Carbon [Gt C] in the same path-integrals [shape and weight of budgets in Gt C], no matter which user-positions the sliders are pushed to. The essence of this is to establish that for UNFCCC-compliance, the relevant 'numeraire' [unit of measurement] is the '100% of: - tonnes-of-carbon per-limit ['precaution'] *before* it embraces the derivatives of tonnes-of-carbon-per-person ['equity'] and only then the dollars-per-tonne-of-carbon ['efficiency' & marginal 'carbon-pricing' & 'damage-costing'] in Domains 3 & 4. 31 October 2013 - BASIC Countries [Brazil S Africa India China] prefer immediate convergence equal entitlements from the start Contraction and convergence Since the concept of ‘contraction and convergence’ was first proposed by the Global Commons Institute in 2000, it has been widely embraced by some industrialised countries. Under contraction and convergence, each country will start out with emission entitlements equal to its current real emissions level, and then, over time, converge to equal its per capita entitlements, while the overall global budget contracts to accommodate the emissions reduction objective. The problem of convergence is that per capita allocation as a fair principle should be applied from T0, rather than as late as the ‘converged point’ in the future (T2). ‘Real emissions’ is a different concept from ‘emissions entitlement’. A country’s high/low per capita real emissions cannot justify its high/low emission entitlements. In the process of convergence, the rights and interests of a country with low current real emissions are infringed by a country with high real emissions. In the budget account proposal, per capita emission entitlements of all countries are equal from the very start, and per capita real emissions of different countries do not have to converge in the future, as long as each country clears its budget accounts by the target year. Equitable access to sustainable development Contribution to the body of scientific knowledge A paper by experts from BASIC countries Harald Winkler, T. Jayaraman, Jiahua Pan, Adriano Santhiago de Oliveira, Yongsheng Zhang, Girish Sant, Jose Domingos Gonzalez Miguez, Thapelo Letete, Andrew Marquard and Stefan Raubenheimer CBAT Domain Two - Contraction and Convergence - does that When CBAT Domain Two [mouse-click multi-colour icon left-hand side] is fully operational: - it will have a 'Table' floating on-screen reading off: - values arising in Gt C for the globe divided into 6 regions as follows: - USA [grey] OECD minus the USA [green] Former Soviet Union [FSU in white] China [yellow] India [orange] Rest of World [ROW in dark blue] for periods: - before convergence starts [2010 to start-date - here 2015] while convergence lasts [from start-date to end-date - here 2030] after convergence ends [from end-date to 2110] from any user-choices made from Slider-use, that will look like this: - . . . where the user-choices: - For any 'Carbon-Budget' using the Vertical Slider for Domain One and For any 'Convergence-Window' using the Horzontal Sliders in Domain Two  the Table of values shown in the image above for all values arising will be adjusting to read any Domain One/Domain Two combinations chosen by the CBAT-user. That means that for any relevant rate of Contraction with any rate of Convergence arising, CBAT will instantly calculate and display charts and table-values in Gt C from any of the: - Three Carbon Budgets, [three buttons LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH, top right] multiplied by 80 positions each [from +40 to -40 - VERTICAL SLIDER] multiplied by Any convergence start-date [2010-2110 - HORIZONTAL SLIDER] multiplied by Any convergence end-date [2010-2110 or 100 years] [HORIZONTAL SLIDER] . . . giving 2.4 million 'C&C' Carbon-Budget user-options, where 'Contraction and Convergence' TOTALS in the Vertical Slider Clock on the right and the on-screen Table are the same. This means that the 'Budget-Total-Clock' on Vertical Slider and the 'Budget-Total' in the Table will always show the same quantity of Gigatonnes of Carbon [Gt C] in the same path-integrals [shape and weight of budgets in Gt C], no matter which user-positions the sliders are pushed to. The essence of this is to establish that for UNFCCC-compliance, the relevant 'numeraire' [unit of measurement] is the '100% of: - tonnes-of-carbon per-limit ['precaution'] *before* it embraces the derivatives of tonnes-of-carbon-per-person-per-limit ['equity'] and only then the dollars-per-tonne-of-carbon ['efficiency' & marginal 'carbon-pricing' & 'damage-costing'] in Domains 3 & 4. 31 October 2013 - Australian Government Climate Change Authority [CCA] Review "C&C - CCA prefers convergence by 2050." Resource-sharing approaches based on emissions rights per person There are four resource-sharing approaches based on equal emissions rights per person. Three involve a gradual move to equal emissions rights per person and the fourth involves immediate equality. Contraction and Convergence Under contraction and convergence, emissions per person contract over time in countries above the global average, and rise over time in countries below the global average, reaching a ‘convergence level’ of equal per person emissions in a specified future year. The convergence year is a key variable in this approach. A shorter convergence period results in smaller budgets for countries which, like Australia, start with above average per person emissions. The Authority has used 2050 as its preferred convergence year when analysing these approaches, balancing the feasibility of the transition with the goal of equalising per person emissions rights. Modified Contraction and Convergence This approach was proposed by Professor Garnaut in his 2008 Review. It involves two main modifications to simple contraction and convergence – developing countries are allowed increasing emissions per person for a transitional period; and developed countries reduce emissions more quickly to provide this headroom (Garnaut 2008). Specifically, it allows developing countries’ allocations to grow at half their economic (gross domestic product) growth rate, if that is greater than the growth rate of their allocated emissions under the simple contraction and convergence approach. Professor Garnaut proposed modified contraction and convergence because some rapidly growing developing countries are close to the global per person average for greenhouse gas emissions. Under simple contraction and convergence, they would have to either stop the growth in their per person emissions very soon or purchase large volumes of emissions reductions from other countries. Professor Garnaut argued that, for these nations, the first is difficult and the second is inequitable. The modified approach provides some ‘headroom’ to allow high-emitting developing countries to make a more gradual adjustment. All countries converge to equal per person shares by 2050. Common but differentiated convergence Under this variant of contraction and convergence, developing countries are provided headroom through delayed reductions rather than larger allocations. Countries begin to reduce per person emissions when they reach a specified threshold of the (time varying) global average, then move linearly to the convergence level. Regardless of when countries begin to reduce emissions, they have the same amount of time to reach the convergence level. The threshold level of emissions and the amount of time to reach the convergence level are policy choices that depend on the global emissions budget. For budgets that limit temperature increases to below 2 degrees there is no headroom for some higher emitting developing countries (Höhne and Moltmann 2009, p. 25). Immediate convergence Contraction and convergence equalises per person emissions at a point in the future. Immediate convergence – also referred to as an equal cumulative per person emissions approach – equalises per person emissions straight away. The Authority has calculated indicative budgets using this approach, adjusting for changes in countries’ share of the global population over time so that each person alive in a given year has an equal share of that year’s available emissions. Some proposals for equal cumulative per person emissions do not adjust for population changes over time (see, for example, German Advisory Council on Global Change 2009). Instead, they allocate each nation a share of the global emissions budget equal to its share of global population in a single ‘reference year’. These variants do not really give effect to the principle of equal emissions per person, so the Authority has not considered them in detail. Other proposals include historical emissions in the calculations; for example, Jayaraman, Kanitkar and D’Souza (2011) incorporate emissions from 1970. Under this approach, Australia’s 2000–2050 emissions budget is negative. This means that Australia’s past emissions have already more than exhausted its entitlements, and the right to all ongoing emissions would have to be purchased from countries with positive entitlements. The Authority’s view is that distant past emissions should not be included as these occurred when their harmful effects could not be foreseen. Contraction and convergence and common but differentiated convergence are based on per person emission levels only, while modified contraction and convergence takes levels of development directly into account. Immediate convergence requires instant equality for all countries regardless of their characteristics. Figure 9.3 illustrates the implications of the four resource sharing approaches for Australia’s long term national emissions budget, showing its share of the global 2 degree budget adopted in Chapter 3. It also shows two simple budgets to help put the others into perspective – a ‘status quo share’ based on Australia’s current share of global emissions, and a ‘population share’ based on Australia’s current share of the global population. All four approaches give a budget comparable to or smaller than the one based on Australia’s current share of global emissions. Modified contraction and convergence provides a budget around 20 per cent smaller than simple contraction and convergence, in part because it allows developing countries a greater share of the global budget. Immediate convergence provides a very small national emissions budget. The next Section discusses two effort-sharing approaches. These are not included in Figure 9.3 because allocations are  not available over the period to 2050, so long term national budgets cannot be derived. Reducing Australia's Greenhouse Gas Emissions Targets and Progress Review Draft Report 28 October 2013 - "C&C if historical responsibilities are considered." Climate Policy MAGKS Joint Discussion Paper Rudolph et al With respect to the target, as already mentioned above, it seems impossible to implement a Pareto efficient Pigouvian tax, because damage costs cannot be exactly calculated. Applying the Standard- Price-Approach, however, economic efficiency is independent of the concrete target level. Thus, the level of acceptable pollution is not a question of economics, but of environmental as well as of social (particularly inter-generational) justice considerations and can be set by the government. In order to comply with the global 2°C climate policy target with a probability of two thirds, applying the Budget Approach (WBGU 2009) would lead to a total amount of 750 billion tons of CO2e that can be emitted within the period of 2010 to 2050. If additionally aspects of social justice such as different historic responsibilities for emissions are considered, concrete emission targets for individual countries could be calculated, e.g. based on the concept of 'Contraction & Convergence' (Meyer 2000). Regional Market-Based Climate Policy in North America: Efficient, Effective, Fair? Sven Rudolph, Takeshi Kawakatsu, & Achim Lerch 27 October 2013 - "C&C solves two problems at once; climate change and economic inequity." Oil Depletion Protocol Heinberg Some organizations believe mat the Kyoto Protocol, while a step in the right direction, could he improved upon. Perhaps the most widely discussed alternative proposal is Contraction and Convergence (C&C], which is promoted by the Global Commons Institute. C&C envisions "CO2 Emissions Entitlements” consistent with an outcome of CO; concentrations in the atmosphere of 450 parts per million (ppm) by the year 2100 (the CO2 level was just 280 ppm in pre-industrial times, while the current conccntration is about 380 ppm). Where C&C especiallv differs from Kyoto is in the allotment of emissions entitlements not to nations, but to individuals worldwide on an equal per-capita basis (though this is not an immediate requirement but rather a target to be achieved by mid-century—hence the term “convergence”]. The reasoning is simple: the Earth’s atmosphere is a “global commons” ofwhich each human being, regardless of nationality, has an equal share in terms of rights to pollute. The Global Commons Institute thus sees its plan as a way of solving two problems at once— global climate change and global economic inequity. The Oil Depletion Protocol Richard Heinbeg 27 October 2013 - UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christina Figueres, 'in tears over future generations' Sudan Vision UN Climate Chief's Tears over Future Generations The head of the UN body tasked with delivering a global climate treaty broke down in tears at a meeting in London as she spoke about the impact of global warming on coming generations. Christiana Figueres told the BBC that the lack of an agreement was "condemning future generations before they are even born". Ms Figueres said this was, "completely unfair and immoral". Despite the slow pace of negotiations, she said a deal can be done by 2015. Costa Rica-born Christiana Figueres has been the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for the last three years. Steadying the ship Taking over after the failure of the talks process in Copenhagen in 2009, Ms Figueres has carefully steered the parties forward. Delegates agreed in Durban in 2011 that a new global deal must be signed by 2015 and come into force from 2020. But Ms Figueres' passionate approach to progress has been tested by the slow, tortuous UN process, where consensus is the only way forward. "I am always frustrated by the pace of the negotiations, I was born impatient. We are moving way, way too slowly, but we are moving in the right direction and that's what gives me courage and hope," she said. Speaking to the BBC on the sidelines of a climate conference at Chatham House in London, Ms Figueres became tearful when she reflected on the impact that climate change might have on coming generations. "I'm committed to climate change because of future generations, it is not about us, right? We're out of here," she said."I just feel that it is so completely unfair and immoral what we are doing to future generations, we are condemning them before they are even born.We have a choice about it, that's the point, we have a choice. If it were inevitable then so be it, but we have a choice to change the future we are going to give our children." Text on the table She said that she was hopeful an agreement could be signed in Paris in 2015 but if that was going to happen, then significant progress had to be made in the next 12 months. There would need to be the draft text of an agreement when the parties meet in Peru in 2014. She said she was determined to avoid the mistakes that were made in the run up to Copenhagen in 2009, when expectations of a far reaching global compact faltered. "We are not going to have another Copenhagen - the leaders of the world are not just being brought in at the last minute, to face 300 pages of text that is completely impossible to digest. Next year would see a special climate summit of world leaders called by UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon. Ms Figueres is hopeful that this will clear the road ahead of the Paris meeting in 2015. "It is not going to be in Paris, going into all the technical details of how to build the agreement which is what we had in Copenhagen. The structure and logic of an agreement need to be in place. "This is way too complex and way too challenging to wait until the last minute in 2015." This year's Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC will take place next month in Poland. Chasing pirates Some environmental campaigners are concerned that because of the country's heavy dependence on coal, it is less committed to strong action on climate change. Critics took issue with comments on an official website for the conference that suggested there were many positives to the unprecedented melting of Arctic ice, including the opportunity to chase "pirates, terrorists and ecologists". But Ms Figueres dismissed concerns about the meeting. "They have shown themselves to be very committed to this process, the COP president (Polish environment minister Marcin Korolec) has put in an extraordinary amount of time into learning and making himself familiar with the endless intricacies of this issue," she said. 26 October 2013 - Dr Robin Stott on C&C at the the Climate Justice Resource Hub Population and climate change: moving toward gender equality is the key. Our Reviews Relevance to three pillars: Human, Societal and Developmental aspects of Climate Change Y Adaptation to impacts of Climate Change N Equitable Low-Carbon Development What: Dr Robin Stott gives an overview of the climate crisis with a perspective on what health professionals can contribute individually, as members of society and as a wider body. In combatting climate change it is important to remember the impacts faced by the poorest and most vulnerable (especially women) and consider measures which will be the most empowering and transformative. Why: Even if climate change were not an issue, a human rights approach to development would demand a move to gender equality, with unprejudiced access to education and family planning, and equal representation in decision-making at all levels. With such conditions in place , as has been observed in more affluent countries, population tends to fall. The positive health effects of carbon mitigation and resource transfer can be considered as a ‘positive prism’ through which to view action upon climate change. How: The article proposes a massive transfer of resources to disadvantaged people while the wealthy reduce their carbon emissions, which will deliver considerable health benefits for the poor. Key to this approach is the human-rights-based perspective upon women’s access to education and family planning. The Contraction and Convergence model as approved by the Climate and Health Council offers an example of a global framework which could meet these criteria. Outcomes: The author suggest health professionals have a key role to play in informing professionals and the public, and in showing an example by leading low-carbon lives themselves. Networking can add to the numbers of health professionals on board with the message; health institutions can adopt low-carbon policies. The most pressing priority is to advocate for a global framework to cap the aggregate emissions of carbon in a way which ensures transfer of resources to the developing world. Directions for future policy: An emissions reduction framework must: - Consist of a globally-binding commitment to reduce emissions within 10 years to an agreed ‘safe’ limit informed by climate science. Contains a mechanism to transfer resources to the poorest countries. This should build in gender equality as a means of ensuring women have access to family planning and decision-making to encourage a stable population. Encourage everyone despite their location and circumstance s to make low-carbon choices as part of sustainable development. 25 October 2013 - US Statement on Climate Negotiations - Implementation and some hope but without a strategy. The Shape of a New International Climate Agreement Remarks Todd D. Stern - Special Envoy for Climate Change - Chatham House London, United Kingdom October 22, 2013 Thanks so much. I’m very glad to be here at this distinguished venue. I appreciate the invitation. Today, I want to talk about the promise and challenge of developing an ambitious, durable, new international climate agreement. We are, of course, well past the time of doubting that our climate is changing, that it is changing rapidly, and that the pace of change is accelerating. We can see that climate impacts are already large, are very likely to increase significantly, and have the potential to be fundamentally disruptive to our world and the world of our children and grandchildren. We should also be well aware that an international agreement is by no means the whole answer. The most important drivers of climate action are countries acting at home. After all, the essential task before us is to transform the energy base of our economies from high to low carbon. Most of this transformation will take place in the private sector, where energy is produced and consumed, but governments need to set the rules of the road, provide the incentives, remove the barriers, fund the R&D, and spur the investment needed to hasten this transformation. In the United States, President Obama has put his shoulder to the wheel with his new Climate Action Plan, which builds on aggressive measures from the past few years. Last month, for example, EPA issued draft regulations to control carbon pollution for new power plants, and is hard at work preparing regulations for existing plants. The President has also issued landmark rules to double the miles-per-gallon of our vehicle sector. These two sectors – power and transportation – account for some two-thirds of our national emissions. And the President has also issued strong efficiency standards for building appliances, has doubled our use of wind and solar power, and is pursuing a suite of other actions. But national action will only rise to the level of ambition we need if it takes place within a strong and effective international system. Effective international climate agreements serve three vital purposes. First, they supply the essential confidence countries need to assure them that if they take ambitious action, their partners and competitors will do the same. Second, they send a potent signal to other important actors – sub-national governments, the private sector, civil society, research institutions, international organizations – that the world’s leaders are committed to containing climate change. Third, they prompt countries to take aggressive climate action at home to meet their national pledges. We have, now, an historic opportunity created by the Durban Platform’s new call for a climate agreement “applicable to all Parties.” Some have said those four words in the Durban negotiating mandate are nothing new in climate diplomacy, but make no mistake, they represented a breakthrough because they mean that we agreed to build a climate regime whose obligations and expectations would apply to everyone. We have had a system, the Kyoto Protocol, where the reverse was true, where real obligations applied only to developed countries, listed in the Framework Convention’s Annex 1. The point of “applicable to all” in the Durban Platform was to say, in effect, that this new agreement would not be Kyoto; that its obligations and expectations would apply to all of us. What Durban recognized was that Kyoto could not point the way forward in a world where Non-Annex 1 countries (developing countries as listed in 1992) already account for a majority of greenhouse gas emissions and will account for two-thirds of those emissions by 2030. Our task now is to fashion a new agreement that will be ambitious, effective and durable. And the only way to do that is to make it broadly inclusive, sensitive to the needs and constraints of parties with a wide range of national circumstances and capabilities, and designed to promote increasingly robust action. Let me talk about certain core elements of such an agreement. First, it will need a supple architecture that integrates flexibility with strength. Some see flexibility as a signal of weakness, but I think just the opposite. We know the agreement must be ambitious; to be ambitious it will have to be inclusive; and to be inclusive it will have to balance the needs and circumstances of a broad range of countries. For such an agreement, a rigid approach is the enemy. We see flexibility in the new agreement in at least three ways. First, rather than negotiated targets and timetables, we support a structure of nationally determined mitigation commitments, which allow countries to “self-differentiate” by determining the right kind and level of commitment, consistent with their own circumstances and capabilities. We would complement that structure with ideas meant to promote ambition – a consultative or assessment period between an initial and final commitment in which all Parties as well as civil society and analytic bodies would have an opportunity to review and comment on proposed commitments; “clarity” requirements (or expectations) so that commitments can be transparently understood by others; and a requirement (or invitation) to countries to include a short explanation of why they believe their proposed commitment is fair and adequate. This nationally determined structure will only work if countries understand that all have to do their part; that strong action is a favor we do ourselves because we are all profoundly vulnerable to climate change; and that the world will be watching how we measure up. Second, we need to focus much more on the real power of creating norms and expectations as distinguished from rigid rules. There is certainly a role for rules, standards and obligations in this agreement. But an agreement that is animated by the progressive development of norms and expectations rather than by the hard edge of law, compliance and penalty has a much better chance of working, being effective and building inclusive, real world ambition. Compare, for example, a very formal system built on tough rules of compliance for failing to meet an internationally binding target versus a less formal system where norms are the crucial motivator – norms built up among countries, international organizations and financial institutions, civil society, the press. While the system of strict rules and compliance might sound good on paper, it would almost certainly depress the ambition of commitments and limit participation by countries. The opposite is true for norms and expectations, which countries will want to meet to enhance their global standing and reputation. We are well on the way to creating such norms, but we are not there yet. We need to think about ways to strengthen norms and infuse them with greater power. Or think about the role that expectations can play, as distinguished from obligations or requirements. It is clear that there would be no support among Non-Annex 1 countries to create formal sub-categories having different requirements with regard to key issues, such as mitigation, transparency or accounting. At the same time, it is difficult to construct an effective agreement unless countries of very different capabilities – for example, emerging or wealthy Non-Annex 1 economies compared to Least Developed Countries – can be expected to act in different ways. Informal, non-obligatory expectations can play an important role in managing this problem. Third, we will need to be creative and flexible as we think about the legal character of the agreement. Again, rigidity is a potential roadblock. We all agreed in Durban to develop a new legal agreement, but left open the precise ways in which it would be legal; recall the famous phrase “protocol, another legal instrument, or an agreed outcome with legal force.” Parties are discussing a variety of ideas with regard to which elements of a new agreement would be legally binding and the role that both international and domestic bindingness might play. This discussion is still in its early stages, and I don’t have much to add here. What I would say, though, is to keep our eyes on the prize of creating an ambitious, effective and durable agreement. Insisting that only one way can work, such as an agreement that is internationally legally binding in all respects, could put that prize out of reach. Now let’s move beyond flexibility. The new agreement will also need to come to terms with differentiation, the issue that has bedeviled climate negotiations more than any other in the past 20 years. I believe there is a way through this thicket, but only if all Parties recognize both what is actually essential in their own position and what is genuinely reasonable in the position of the other side. Nearly all Parties to the Convention share a conviction that climate change is a serious threat that has to be addressed with vigor and commitment. The difficulty lies in deciding who has to do what and the phrase at the heart of this debate is CBDR – common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. In one sense, this phrase has come to embody an ideological narrative of fault and blame, but it also serves a more pragmatic purpose. It is seen as the principle that shields developing countries from climate requirements they fear could constrain their capacity to grow, develop and alleviate poverty. While we don’t accept the narrative of blame, we do see the concerns that underlie the developing country attachment to CBDR as entirely legitimate. Countries in the midst of the historic project of developing, industrializing and alleviating poverty cannot fairly be asked to embrace obligations that would jeopardize those hopes. The nationally determined structure of commitments we have already discussed should satisfy this pragmatic purpose, since countries would make their own decisions about what kind of mitigation commitments were appropriate given their own circumstances and capabilities. Moreover, the idea of relying more on norms and expectations should also ease developing country concerns. The difficulty comes when we consider the Annex 1 and Non-Annex 1 categories created in 1992 – in particular, whether those original categories should define the operational content of the agreement. Put another way, are we negotiating a new agreement that has a single operational system differentiated across the spectrum of countries or that has two different systems on relevant issues like mitigation, transparency, accounting – one for developed countries, one for developing. As I have said on various occasions this year, we have no quarrel with preserving the annexes in their current state, provided they do not play an operational role in defining the obligations and expectations of a new agreement. Nor would we oppose operational annexes if they evolved with evolving material circumstances, so that countries rising above designated thresholds would graduate into Annex 1. Some would doubtless find themselves in Annex 1 as soon as the new agreement took effect. But what is unacceptable in our view is to use fixed, 1992 categories to determine who is expected to do what in a new agreement taking effect nearly 30 years later and intended to define the course of climate diplomacy for decades to come. Such a separation is inimical to ambition. It would also be viewed as deeply unfair by many countries, thus undermining the political cohesion we need to build an effective and durable climate system going forward. The original division of countries, after all, was based on material circumstances, not some unchanging feature of national culture or geography, and those material circumstances have changed, sometimes dramatically, in the intervening years and will keep changing in the years ahead. In 1992, Non-Annex 1 countries accounted for 45% of global greenhouse gas emissions from energy and industrial uses. Now they account for some 60% of emissions and are likely to account for some 68% by 2030. Four Non-Annex 1 countries are now in the OECD. Korea is ranked 12th on the UN Human Development Index, just behind Canada, and is listed by the IMF as one of its 35 “advanced economies.” Sixty-six Non-Annex 1 countries have a higher per capita GDP than the least wealthy Annex 1 country today. And China’s GDP, both aggregate and per capita, has grown tenfold since 1990, while its share of global emissions has increased from 10% to 22%, and its per capita emissions are higher than many countries in Europe. In short, there is no real substantive defense for asserting that membership in the 1992 annexes should both (a) define obligations and expectations, and (b) be immutable in a rapidly changing world. Some nonetheless argue that this result is required because the Durban platform says the new agreement is to be “under the Convention.” Since the annexes were created as part of the Convention, it is alleged that they must never change their composition or their operational character in defining what Parties are supposed to do. But this is specious, since “under the Convention” plainly had no such meaning in the Durban Platform negotiations, and if it had, there never would have been a Durban Platform. Some also argue that the annexes must be fixed and retain their operational character because Annex 1 countries bear historical responsibility for our climate problem and history doesn’t change. But this claim makes no sense either. First, it misconceives the facts of historical emissions since, based on the well-known MATCH study, commissioned by the UNFCCC, cumulative emissions from developing countries will surpass those of developed countries by 2020. Second, it ignores the fact that history is changing continually in dynamic ways. China, for example, is already the world’s second largest historic emitter. And the world is now emitting as much every decade as all the cumulative emissions that occurred before 1970. Third, it is unwarranted to assign blame to developed countries for emissions before the point at which people realized that those emissions caused harm to the climate system. So let me sum up on differentiation. Developing country concerns about avoiding climate obligations that could constrain their capacity to develop are entirely legitimate. CBDR is an enduring principle of the Convention and, read properly, should address these developing country concerns. A new agreement must be structured and drafted in a way consistent with those concerns. The annexes can be left alone in their current composition. But they cannot have an operational role of defining obligations and expectations, because doing so is unjustifiable in a rapidly evolving world and would defeat our effort to produce the ambitious, effective and durable agreement that is our mission. The third broad issue that will profoundly affect our negotiations is financial assistance in its various forms. Here we need a paradigm shift in our thinking, based on a combination of hard realities and enormous opportunity. To state the obvious, there is no question that we need to provide assistance to many countries that are working to build low-carbon economies and to many countries seeking to build resilience and to adapt to climate impacts. Since 2010, the United States has been providing some $2.5 billion a year, more than six times greater than we provided before the Obama Administration. And we are continuing our vigorous push within the U.S. government for climate funding. Now the hard reality: no step change in overall levels of public funding from developed countries is likely to come anytime soon. The fiscal reality of the United States and other developed countries is not going to allow it. This is not just a matter of the recent financial crisis; it is structural, based on the huge obligations we face from aging populations and other pressing needs for infrastructure, education, health care and the like. We must and will strive to keep increasing our climate finance, but it is important that all of us see the world as it is. However, there is also enormous opportunity, if we can take advantage of it. Because a genuine step change in funding can occur in the flow of private capital leveraged by public money or public policy. Some leveraged private investment is already flowing into developing countries, but we can do so much more to unlock much larger flows. The well of private capital is deep, but we need hard work by developed and developing governments to tap into it. Once again, to make real progress, we need to elevate practical problem solving above rhetoric and ideology. Lectures about compensation, reparations and the like will produce nothing but antipathy among developed country policy makers and their publics. But we can succeed on this front if we work together. Finally, I want to say a few words about what we can accomplish in complementary arenas that are outside the UNFCCC but serve the UNFCCC’s climate purpose. For example, the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, which has grown in 18 months from 6 countries to 33 and nearly 40 non-country members, is pursuing multiple promising initiatives to reduce the emissions of short-lived pollutants like methane and black carbon. We are also making progress through the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, whose Carbon Fund is pioneering the first ever large scale pay-for-performance systems to reduce emissions from forests in developing countries, while the Readiness Fund is supporting dozens of countries in preparing to combat emissions from deforestation and degradation. And we have a great opportunity to avoid an estimated 90 gigatons of CO2 equivalent by 2050 – a huge amount – by using the Montreal Protocol to phase down the production and consumption of HFCs. A few countries object on the ideological ground that action on HFCs should occur only in the UNFCCC, but this is the kind of mentality we need to transcend. Remember that the point of our efforts – always – must be the results we can produce, consistent with everyone’s circumstances and capabilities. The Montreal Protocol has proper jurisdiction. It can handle every issue from assistance to differentiation. And it has the expertise and will have the funding to get the job done. We need to seize this opportunity. Let me sum up. Here are my watchwords: First, flexible strength built on nationally determined commitments, relying on rules where needed, and elevating the role of norms and expectations. Second, differentiation and CBDR that accomplishes what developing countries need but without undermining ambition or the political cohesion the UNFCCC needs by perpetuating a two-track system. Third, financial assistance grounded in the core imperative of public finance but recognizing that our chief opportunity is based on a new paradigm in which public funds and public policy in donor and recipient countries leverage large-scale investment. Fourth, complementary initiatives that broaden the overall international climate system in service of the UNFCCC’s central objective of avoiding dangerous climate change Let us finally get this right. I know that we can if we move together – boldly, with determination, and with a shared understanding of how we can meet the awesome challenge we face. Thank you. 25 October 2013 - Carbon Budget Analysis Tool [CBAT] - Demo/Guide to Mouse-Clicking & 'Toggling' between Domains Try this in the 'live' CBAT 'GUI' [Graphic User Interface] below . . . Demonstration of Mouse-Clicking between [or toggling] CBAT's Carbon-budgets here BACK TO CBAT Graphic User Interface [GUI] BACK TO ALL INFO POINTS DOMAIN 1 25 October 2013 - C&C a "Key Concept" in Environmental & Natural Resource Economics Jonathan Harris & Brian Roach Environmental and Natural Resource Economics Jonathan Harris and Brian Roach 25 October 2013 - CBAT - "New website of great value to policy-makers." Ethics and Climate Don Brown Widener University As we have explained from many angles on this website, climate change is a civilization challenging ethical problem. We have also explained why nations urgently need to immediately respond to their ethical obligations in making national emissions commitments under the UNFCCC. In addition, ethics requires those engaged in dangerous behavior to understand the effects of their policy choices and respond to their ethical obligations. Yet complex interactions of ghg emissions levels, atmospheric ghg concentrations, the climate system’s response to atmospheric ghg concentrations, and how policy options must consider the magnitude of the global threat as it changes in time make it difficult for policy makers and NGOs to visualize and understand the significance of climate policy choices. And so ethics requires policy makers to understand these complex interactions, yet the sheer complexity of these interactions makes clear understanding of the significance of policy options very challenging. We have also explained on this website how the debate on climate change in the United States and several other high-emitting nations is largely ignoring national ethical responsibilities. If nations are to take their ethical obligations seriously, they need to understand the extreme urgency of increasing their ghg emissions reduction targets to comply with their ethical obligations. Yet to understand their ethical obligations policy-makers must understand the significance of policy choices. And so ethics requires climate change policy-makers to understand many complex scientific issues. Ethics would also hold nations morally responsible for the failure to do this. Delay makes the climate change problem worse. Yet understanding how delay makes achieving the goals of preventing dangerous climate change extraordinarily more challenging also requires some knowledge about how increasing atmospheric concentrations affect global emissions reductions pathways options. In addition, because each national emission reduction target commitment must be understood as an implicit position of the nation on safe ghg atmospheric concentration levels, setting national ghg emissions goals must be set with full knowledge of how any national target will affect the global problem. However, a clear understanding of how national emissions reductions commitments affect global climate change impacts requires an understanding of complex relationships between atmospheric ghg concentrations, likely global temperature changes in response to ghg atmospheric concentrations, rates of ghg emissions reductions over time and all of this requires making assumptions about how much CO2 from emissions will remain in the atmosphere, how sensitive the global climate change is to atmospheric ghg concentrations, and when the international community begins to get on a serious emissions reduction pathway guided by equity considerations. The problem in understanding these variables is a challenge that no static graph can capture. A new website should be of great value to policy-makers to view and understand the relationship between their national emissions reduction strategies and the global climate change problem, issues that must be considered in setting national ghg targets as a matter of ethics. This tool is the Carbon Budget Accounting Tool (CBAT) which is available here  Some features of CBAT are still under development, yet the site is already practically useful to policy-makers. The CBAT has been developed by the Global Commons Institute founded in the United Kingdom in 1990 by Aubrey Meyer as an organization to find to a fair way to tackle climate change. The CBAT tool allows visualization of any national response for reducing national ghg emissions commitments based upon the idea of contraction and convergence, one of several equity frameworks under discussion in international climate negotiations, but is also of value for visualizing the policy significance of other equity frameworks that are under discussion internationally. CBAT allows those interested in developing a global solution to visualize the otherwise complex interactions of international carbon budgets, atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, ghg emissions reductions commitments, the effect of a nation taking its ethical obligations seriously, resulting temperature, ocean acidification, and sea level rise. 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. This writer has 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 helps me visualize the significance of certain policy options facing the world. Ethics and Climate Don Brown Widener University 24 October 2013 - "Start sharing what's left on the basis of population with the Carbon Budget Calculator." YALE 360 Fred Pearce The Trillion-Ton Cap: Allocating The World's Carbon Emissions The U.N. climate panel concluded last month that carbon emissions should be capped at a trillion tons, a total the world is rapidly approaching. Now comes the hard part: How will we decide how the remaining emissions are apportioned? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If holding global warming below two degrees requires a trillion-ton cap, then the next question is how we might share out the remaining atmospheric space. And here things get really hard. Logically, there should be some sense of fair shares. Most people believe that should be based on population. The GCI’s founder and the man behind the carbon budget calculator [CBAT], Aubrey Meyer, is also the inventor of the idea of 'Contraction and Convergence' as the only equitable way of saving the world from dangerous climate change. Contraction is the bit where we agree on a carbon budget beyond which the world cannot go. Convergence involves sharing out the remaining rights, which he says should be based on national population sizes. Meyer says we should ignore the past and start sharing the remaining space from today. An American geophysicist, Raymond Pierrehumbert of the University of Chicago, assumed a start date of 2000 and found that a fair shares approach would require North America to cease emissions completely by 2025. YALE 360 -Fred Pearce 23 October 2013 - "The Climate Council Task would be to sort out C&C." Climate Challenged Society Dryzek Norgaard Schlosberg Attracted by the comparative feasibility of minilateralism but worried about a small number of countries seen to be ordering the world, Eckersley proposes “inclusive minilateralism” in the form of a ‘global climate council’ composed of states that are most responsible for the accumulated emissions in the atmosphere, most capable of acting and representatives of the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Such a council might then be composed of the US, China, European Union, Russia, Japan, India, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico plus representatives from the Association of Small Island States, the African Union and the Least Developed Countries Group. It is the inclusion of representatives of these last three ‘most vulnerable’ categories of countries that distinguishes Eckersley’s proposal from more conventional minilateralism because the most responsible and most capable are also the largest emitters. The task of the Council would be to sort out long-term emissions reductions targets – essentially the shape of Contraction and Convergence – we introduce here: -   Climate Challenged Society John S Dryzek, Richard B Norgaard David Schlosberg 23 October 2013 - C&C misrepresented again by Ottmar Edenhofer & Sivan Kartha in the Economics of Climate Change in China Here we go again with Ottmar Edenhofer and Sivan Kartha et al deliberately misrepresenting C&C and deliberately misquoting the GCI source cited. No amount of asking them to cite and quote sources accurately has had any curative effect over many years of asking them not to continue with these academic misdemeanours. The GCI source cited by these authors for these inaccurate and misleading comments is this book [described as GCI 2000]: - This GCI C&C source book says nothing at all about convergence being a, "gradual transition over decades." This is a complete invention by these authors. What this book actually says on this matter of the rates of convergence is: - "As the graphs show, any date of convergence on equal per capita emissions can be portrayed in the C&C model. I was therefore able to adjust it to show the US reaching convergence by 2100 in one scenario and the Chinese by 2010 in another. I showed both countries this and told them that negotiating the date (and hence the rate) of convergence was their problem not mine. A faster rate of convergence simply means that high population, low-per-capita emissions countries like China get a larger share of emissions permits sooner and vice versa the US." The book also provided two graphic examples of output from the C&C model re convergence - by 2010 & by 2030: - To better establish an 'Ur-Reference' for C&C [and partly to counter this now perrennial disinformation campaign from authors like Kartha and Edenhofer] the Contraction and Convergence model is now embedded in this Carbon Budget Analysis Tool [CBAT] animation in 4 Domains. When complete, CBAT Domains 1 & 2 will give users 240 different rates of contraction and 10,000 different rates of convergence within those. In fact subject to its 4-Domain orgnaising structure, the CBAT model is easily reprogrammed to calculate and graphically demonstrate virtually an infinity of such options. In short, their description - as above - is obviously false. In the light of the information here it is obviously deliberately false. Who knows, perhaps this will have the effect of correcting these persistent academic misdemeanours. But why these economists should assume that these decisions are theirs to make, begs the questions as to what they think their role in international negotiations actually is, let-alone what value they believe their supposed 'discipline' has to offer. As was observed recently in the Huffington Post about the recent pronouncement by Todd Stern: - “The first issue is: - What rate of global emissions contraction achieves compliance with the objective of the UNFCCC? The answer to this is not words, it is a path-integral number. The second issue is: - What rate of international convergence in this emissions contraction event will achieve a compromise between over-consumers and under-consumers. Once again, the answer to this is not words, it is a stable set derivative of that path-integral. Are there uncertainties about calculating this? Of course there are, largely the result of mixing denial with contestable economic assumptions and avoidance with remote forth-order distractions presented as 'complexity'. Is there a way to reduce the uncertainties when calculating the answers to the above? Yes, but it means abandoning the myths and doing some maths. Here - hopefully helpful to Todd Stern - is a first-order pass at that. As Murrary Gell Mann once quipped, underneath all complexity lies a Deep Simplicity . . .”     23 October 2013 - "Politicians & NGOs call for larger cuts under the banner C&C." Global Environmental Issues Frances Harris Following the 1997 Kyoto meeting of the Parties fo the UN Framework Converntion on Climate Change, both the UK and the EU have set clear targets for CO2 reduction and the increased contribution made by renewable energy resources in electricity generation. As an example, the UK is now comeitted to cutting its CO2 emissions by 20% by 2010, although many commentators feel this is not enough by a large margin. Concerned NGOs and politicians in the Governments of the Industrialised Countries are pressing for much larger cuts averaging 60 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions under the banner of Contraction and Convergence [C&C] where the onus is on the developed world to make deeper reductions sooner. Global Environmental Issues Frances Harris 23 October 2013 - "C&C the only strategy that has any prospect of preventing disaster." Talking Walking Dr Mayer Hillman Climate change represents and is now very widely recognised as the most serious threat to the future of life on earth. Accumulating evidence indicates that the choices and quality of life of the generations succeeding us will be seriously and progressively diminished if we do not dramatically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Difficult though it is to concede, without making it mandatory to do so, the current lifestyles of the population cannot be sufficiently de-coupled from this dependence within a realistic time-frame and budget. Accordingly, I have drawn the conclusion that an annual tradable per capita carbon allowance, based on the principles of security and fairness embedded in the Global Commons Institute’s Contraction and Convergence framework, is the realistic way forward. It is the only strategy which has any prospect of preventing catastrophic ecological disaster and therefore must be adopted as a matter of urgency and certainly within the next five years. Mayer Hillman Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Policy Studies Institute, University of Westminster, in London. Mayer has tirelessly revealed the inconsistencies in government policy at the local, national and international level. Trained as an architect and town planner, much of his research has been on mobility, social justice and the quality of life in cities. As he explains, his focus now is firmly about climate change adaptation, how we must change our ways, and steps we can take to make those changes. Notes of Mayer Hillman’s 5 year walking forecast for Talking Walking: Recorded over the telephone in September 2013 and published in October 2013 on http://talkingwalking.net To mark the fifth anniversary of Talking Walking, we asked thought leaders to make their 5 year predictions about the state of walking in the fields in which they work and the places where they live. Respondents were asked to call a Skype number to leave their forecast, identifying who they were, what work they were doing that revolved around walking, and what their forecast was for walking in the next five years. We recorded these voice messages and reproduce them here: Mayer kindly provided this abbreviated paper of his walking forecast. 23 October 2013 - "Emissions reduction will follow the Contraction and Convergence Path." Regulating Disasters Andri Wibisana As an alternative to the Protocol's common but differentiated principle, Pardy proposes a burden sharing based on per capita emissions. In this regard, Pardy argues that the burden sharing should first proceed from the calculation of the permissible global amount of GHGs emissions. Once such a global limit of GHGs emissions has been set, it will be divided by the world population to result in per capita emissions. These will be the emission limit of every person, which will then be multiplied by the population of each country to result in national emission limits. For example, assume that the global community has agreed to stabilize GHGs concentrations at 450 ppm, According to the data of Corfee-Morlot and Hahne, such a concentration level will require the limit of GHGs emissions by 2.020 at 8.5-10.5 GtC per year. Supposed that countries have also agreed to use the projected world population in 2020 as the baseline, one can calculate the required per capita emissions by dividing the annual global emissions in 2020 (e.g. 8,5 GtC) with the projected world population. Multiplying such per capita emissions with the projected population of a country, one may also find the country's emission limit. In this way, emission reduction will follow the so-called 'Contraction and Convergence' path, in which, since each country bears an equal responsibility to keep its Gt C emissions below its national limit, countries of which emissions exceed their national limits should reduce their emissions, while countries of which emissions are below their national limits still enjoy the rights to increase their emissions. Regulating Disasters Climate Change & Environmental Harm Michael Faure Andri Wiisbana 23 October 2013 - "Contraction and Convergence is radidly gaining support." A People's World John Madeley We need an alternative economic model, powered by values that uphold human rights, celebrate diversity and respect environmental limits. Above all, money rights must once again be put back in their box, and subordinated to human, animal and environmental rights. Markets must once again be integrated into our social, political and cultural arrangements, not dominate them. And all economic policies must be constrained by the limits placed on the natural capital of our seas, soil and atmosphere. This will require new regulation. There will have to be controls over capital; regulation of trade, taxes on speculation, and a new framework of justice for negotiations between international creditors and sovereign debtors. We will have to bring back the ancient form of regulation known as Sunday — periodic correction to imbalance by setting aside one day a week for limiting consumption, and avoiding the exploitation of people and the land. And we will need a plan for the 'contraction and convergence' of greenhouse gas emissions. There must be an end to the dominance of creditors and bankers; and to the poor financing the rich. Rich countries must be structurally adjusted towards the sustainable use of natural resources. Ecological accounts must be settled, and debts paid by the rich to the poor, for the overuse of the earth's resources. The unpayable and uncollectable debts of the poorest countries and the poorest people must be written off. This requires a complete re-engineering of economic thinking. We need to abandon utopian economic models which idolize money and militarization, and which lead to debt creation and ultimately serfdom. The world must be turned upside down. Two hundred plus years of economic development have seen the global economy expand, and the gap between rich and poor widen. But the economy has expanded so much, based on the exploitation of natural resources, that we are living beyond our environmental budget. We now face bankruptcy of an irreversible nature. Disproportionate consumption by the rich has created an enormous ecological debt. To balance the environmental budget and tackle the gaps between rich and poor we need a plan that both reduces our environmental impact and redistributes our natural wealth. A model called 'contraction and convergence' is rapidly gaining support. It works by setting a global cap on greenhouse gas concentrations, with an appropriate emissions budget that is reduced over time in a carefully negotiated fashion. A Peoples World John Madeley 22 October 2013 - "Little progress can be made without fundamental C&C principle." Vince Cable UK Secretary of State [Business] "Man-made climate change. Little progress can be made without fundamental agreement on the principle of 'Contraction and Convergence', as between high-income countries, which have generated the lion's share of the stock of carbon in the atmosphere, and the big low-income countries, which will contribute the greatest future emissions. Without China and India as full and equal partners in the process, it will fail." Vince Cable Lib Dem MP [2009] - UK Secretary of State Business The Storm: The World Economic Crisis & What It Means 22 October 2013 - "C&C; a basic pillar of International climate negotiations." Reframing Climate Jaeger et al The central challenge of international climate negotialions is to agree upon the rate or contraction and convergence of the per capita emissions of all countries - an approach that was first discussed in the 1990s and has meanwhile become a basic pillar of UNFCCC. Typical transformation paths computed under the budget constraint implied by the 2°C global warming limit yield total emissions peaking around 2020, decreasing rapidly thereafter to very low val ues by the middle of the century. The later the emissions peak, the more rapid and challenging the required subsequent rate or decrease. To satisfy realistic contraction and convergence criteria, the emissions of the industrialized countries need to start decreasing immediately in order to accommodate longer emission growth phases for the emerging and less developed economics. Adherents of the top-down approach argue that the global interdependencies mandate global solutions in the fo rm of binding international climate agreements. The most straightforward way to realize equitable contraction and convergence trajectories, for example, would be to apply a 'stick' policy in the rorm of a global cap-and-trade system generalizing various regional or national cap-and-trade systems, such as the European Emission Trading System (ETS) or similar schemes in the US. In the approach proposed by Wicke and Durr-Pucher (2006), for example, each country would be assigned a total number of emission permits proportional to its population, in accordance with the principle of equal per capita emission rights. Countries with low per capita emissions would then be able to sell their initially surplus emission rights to countries with higher per capita emissions, thereby achieving two important objectives: (i) global investments would be attracted into the most effective channels for reducing emissions; (ii) capital and technology would be transfrerred from the industriaJ countries to the emerging and less developed countries. Thus the resultant contraction and convergence trajectories would be economically optimal, generate transfers from industrialized countries to emerging and less developed countries, and be consistent with the principal of equal per capita emission rights. Each country would furthermore be able to implement its own individual policies for reducing emissions, for example, by auctioning its national contingent of emission permits and using the income for subsidies for renewable energy, or by introducing additional emission regulations. The basic principle of equal per capita emission rights would need, of course, to be adjusted to allow for different regional climates, different access to natural resources, etc. and would also need to be augmented by further global agreements on non-C02 greenhouse gases, on deforestation, etc. Reframing the Problem of Climate Change Carlo C. Jaeger, Gerd Leipold, Diana Mangalagiu, Klaus Hasselmann, J. David Tàbara 21 October 2013 - "C&C; a proposal that has received considerable attention." Climate Change Negotiations Sjostedt & Penetrante A proposal that has received considerable attention is 'Contraction and Convergence' [Global Commons Institute 2005]. This proposal establishes a global trjectory towards o specific concentration level of carbon dioxied. Under this proposal, all countries agree an annually reviewable target and then work out the rate at which emissions must contract in order to reach it. Allocation of carbon dioxide converge by a specific date from current emissions allowances that are proportional to antional populations [equal per capita emissions]. Emissions would be divided among regions and nations by negotiation. Climate Change Negotiations 21 October 2013 - "C&C provides higher benefits for poorer regions." Global Problems Smart Solutions Eited by Bjorn Lomborg A 'Contraction and Convergence' regime would provide higher benefits for poorer regions in the short term, but the highest in the long term. Global Problems Smart Solutions Edited by Bjorn Lomborg 21 October 2013 - "McMichael et al propose a policy of Contraction and Convergence" Sustainable Food Processing Tiwari et al Consumers are encourgaed to reduce their consumption of dairy products and eggs, since livestock farming is one of the significant contributors to greenhouse gas emisssions and climate change [McMichael et al 2007]. The global mean meat consumption of 100 g/person/day has a tenfold variation between high consuming and low consuming populations. Therefore McMichael et al propose a policy of 'Contraction and Convergence' that is, contracting the consumption levels in rich countries and increasing the consumption levels in poor countries. This would help to combat price rises and help with food security issues. Sustainable Food Processing Brijesh K Tiwari, Tomas Norton, Nicholas M Holden 18 October 2013 - "CBAT a beautiful promise kept." Dr Paul Read Monash Sustainability Institute Monash University Australia "I can see an awful of hard work went into developing CBAT. I'm thoroughly impressed because the mission of Aubrey Meyer and colleagues is to translate some very complex science in such a way that the public can understand it and embrace a solution in the form of C&C - a tall order when scientists like myself worry so much about the statistical and theoretical restraints to such an extent that the big message is often lost in terms of socio-economic impact and equity. The broad trends and impacts of climate change remain and scientific discourse needs a great deal of work to bring the message to the people who now have the power to vote on the future of their own children. The CBAT, as it continues to evolve given the self-evident dedication of its authors, should become a critical tool that fills the gap between the realities of climate science and the realities of human impact as the science continues to unfold and provides much more accuracy and simplicity in support of the broader message. A beautiful promise to Aubrey's daughter so many years is ago is still kept." Dr Paul Read Research Fellow Monash Sustainability Institute, Monash University, Australia More responses to CBAT 18 October 2013 - "Equity and Limits suggest a key role for C&C." Globalisation, Economic Transition & Environment Philip Lawn "A lasting prosperity requires much closer attention to the ecological limits of economic activity. Identifying and imposing strict resource and emis-sion caps, and where required, establishing reduction targets under such caps are vital for a sustainable economy. To the extent that they have been implemented in some countries and regions of the world, the stabilisation targets and emission budgets so far established provide an exemplar in this regard. The conditions of equity and ecological limits, when taken together, suggest a key role for the model of 'Contraction and Convergence' in which equal per capita allowances are established under an ecological cap that converges towards the sustainable level (Meyer, 2004). This approach has been applied, to some extent, to carbon. A similar approach should be applied more generally. To this end, declining caps on throughput should be established for all non-renewable resources. Sustainable yields should be identified for all renewable resources, whilst limits should be established for per capita emissions and wastes (particularly toxic and hazardous wastes). Effective mechanisms for imposing caps on these material flows should then be set in place." Globalisation, Economic Transition and the Environment Philip Lawn 16 October 2013 - CBAT; "Excellent - Incredible" - Another really positive review, this time from Laurie Barlow in California "CBAT is truly excellent! Just an incredible tool." "CBAT is showing the interconnectedness of the three factors (temperature, acidity, and sea level) with a graphic user interface, which nobody else has done. I don't think too many people "do the math" correctly, it requires an iteration of calculations and an examination of the different scenarios to understand the impact of 450 PPMV as a "runaway" scenario, and how many Gt C's per year have to be reduced in order to avoid it. This escapes the political posturing and goes directly to the analysis of the problem in such a way that people can understand the consequences and visually see what could happen in the future. Static charts can't show these relationships, especially with the segregated feedback scenario that reflects the planetary feedback relationships being added to human emissions and shows the acceleration of the impact of carbon on the biosphere. Depressingly, even with carbon emissions at zero, we don't get back to the planet we had in 1960 (316 PPMV), let alone the levels before the industrial revolution (260–280 PPMV). Question to the world: How do we pull that slider down to the lowest position [-40], equal to the concentrations level falling to equal the starting position in 2010 or effectively a CAF-0% reference by 2110 [negative feedback]? I should think that would be a worthy challenge to the human race, one of the finest systems gaming opportunities out there. This simulation is the start of a new, comprehensive way of looking at this problem, making the Apollo program look like child's play. Which it was. And here we are at 400 ppmv half a century later." Laurie Barlow AIA San Marino, California United States of America L Barlow & Company More Responses to CBAT 15 October 2013 - "WGBU recommends rapid integration of all states in C&C regime." Fighting Poverty per Environmental Policy Given that negotiations on future commiment periods have not yet begun, estimates of potential financial transfers generated by emissions trading can only be hypothetical. WBGU has proposed committing all countries to limit their emissions and participate in emissions trading in the future in line with the contraction and convergence approach (WBGU, 2004). According to model calculations by WBGU, emissions trading would result in cumulative transfer payments of US$8,000,000 million to 12,000,000 million from OECD and transition countries to developing countries in the period up to 2100. This corresponds to annual average transfers of USS84,000 million to 128,000 million — whereby actual annual transfers are subject to considerable variation over time. These payments would make a significant contribution towards meeting the costs of emission reductions in developing countries (WBGU, 2003). For the upcoming negotiations WBGU recommends pushing for a rapid integration of all countries in a regime based on contraction and convergence to help mobilize the necessary funds in this way. World in Transition WBGU [2013] 15 October 2013 - "Last Hours" - That Soon? Nonetheless a definite & serious wake-up call from Thom Hartmann & colleagues. 15 October 2013 - CBAT Domain 2 - click Domain-2 icon [left] user sets convergence start/end dates w horizontal sliders. CBAT - Using the Horizontal SLIDER: - The Convergence START date is proportional to regional emissions shares in 2010 The Convergence END date is proportional to regional emissions shares in 2010 Users will: - soon see clocks for six region values arising from choices made soon be able to choose any BUDGET in Domain ONE - eventually be able to choose any POSITION of any BUDGET in Domain ONE The 6 Regions are presently identified and shown here: - 10 October 2013 - IPCC AR5 Carbon Budgeting redone as a CBAT-Info webpage [clearer now] but where did they get 616 Gt C? IPCC AR5 Results redone as a CBAT-Info webpage for clarity Using CBAT it is straightforward relating these results to the UKMO's UK Climate Act The message on the new page is the same, if clearer: - IPCC AR5: - first result effectively says, ‘halve the UKCA’. second result says, ‘reduce UKCA by up to a third.’ third result [50% odds] effectively says, 'this is the UKCA.' Many people are now asking, 'where did that 616 Gt C quoted in IPCC AR5 SPM figure come from?'   So I have written to Martin Manning the IPCC TSU coordinator saying please can you help me with that question? It obviously needs an answer and I can't figure it out.*   However , the truth is no-one wants to draw path-integrals - maybe because that's : - [a] calculation and [b] 'policy-prescriptive'. If that's right, maybe UKMO/CCC need to be acknowledged positively for having at least taken that 'path-integral' step with UK Climate Act [UKCA], even if feedbacks were all left out. 09 October 2013 - IPCC AR5; UKCA [a] twice too much [b] a third too much [c] exactly right [m UKMO feedback-free modelling?]. 08 October 2013 - IPCC AR5 "Better than 50:50 odds of achieving 2 degrees or less, budget 184-224 GtC" [i.e. halve UK Climate Act]   06 October 2013 - "Climate Endgame - Talks must start urgently on the world's carbon-budget." Greensward Civitas Talks must start urgently on the world's "carbon budget" – the amount of greenhouse gas that can be poured into the atmosphere without triggering dangerous climate change – as without radical policies to cut emissions humanity will exceed the limit within 15 to 25 years, the world's leading climate economist has warned. Lord Stern, the former World Bank chief economist and author of the landmark study of the economics of global warming, said the world faced a stark choice. On Friday Sept 27, 2013, after days of deliberations, the world's leading climate scientists put a figure for the first time on how much carbon dioxide humanity can continue to pour into the air before overheating the planet. The stark conclusion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was that half to two-thirds of the "budget" have already used up. Tim Yeo, a Conservative MP, said: "The publication of a carbon budget by the IPCC increases the urgency and importance of the UN process and of future CoP meetings. Work should start at once on the establishment of a fair apportionment of emissions country by country, based on the principle of Contraction and Convergence." Full Story in The UK Guardian   And further, from GCI: IPCC are talking for the first time in 20 years about what are by definition Carbon Emissions Contraction Budgets. The AR5 WG1 final statement published the words/numbers that show in a nutshell that, "to give better than 50:50 odds for limiting global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average, 130 GtC needs to be deducted from the UK Climate Act Carbon Contraction budget- 395 Gtc needs to be reduced to 269 GtC."  With the IPCC still omitting feedbacks in the projected scenarios, here's the correct math. 05 October 2013 - Now the IPCC AR5 Policy Maker's Summary shows the UK Climate Act is "Too Weak" to keep within 2 degrees. IPCC are talking for the first time in 20 years about what are by definition Carbon Emissions Contraction Budgets. The AR5 WG1 final statement published the words/numbers that show in a nutshell that, "to give better than 50:50 odds for limiting global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average, 126 GtC needs to be deducted from the UK Climate Act Carbon Contraction budget- 395 Gtc needs to be reduced to 269 GtC." Three Probability Levels Cumulative Emissions 1800 - 2011 Plus "Non-CO2-Forcings in RCP 2.6" [NB these still exclude major feedbacks] Balance Emitted Already since 1800 Final Residual Emissions Budget Balance 33% 1,560 GtC 880 GtC 680 GtC 531 GtC 349 GtC 50% 1,210 GtC 840 GtC 370 GtC 531 GtC 309 GtC 66% 1,000 GtC 800 GtC 200 GtC 531 GtC 269 GtC NB IPCC’s “Non-CO2 Forcings in RCP 2.6” [et al] are the ‘Non-CO2 Gases’. However, it should be noted carefull that the RCPs still OMIT most feedback effects. In other words the prognosis for ‘climate-control’ is actually worse than the IPCC AR5 suggested. On pages 2-4 in this document, using CBAT we have compared these IPCC ‘Final Residual Balances’ with the rates of C&C in the UK Climate Act [UKCA]. UKCA proposed an Emissions Contraction Budget of 395 GtC with Convergence by 2050. GCI proposes an Emissions Contraction Budget of 200 GtC with negotiations for an accelerated rate of Convergence [example used in document suggests equal entitlements by 2020]. 03 October 2013 - "C&C used in UNFCCC Equity Debates to address Double Jeopardy." Understadning Earth System Cornell et al Failings in integrating the social, environmental and economic dimensions can be seen in concern about the ‘double jeopardy’ problem where the world’s poorest people are likely to be most exposed to climate hazards but also are likely to have the least adaptive capacity. In the equity debates relating to the ‘Contraction & Convergence’ approach (GCI, 2005) used in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which has focused attention on the emissions associated with the historic development of the world’s rich countries; and of course in the discourses of payments for ecosystem services and the Kyoto and post-Kyoto mechanisms for climate mitigation. Understanding the Earth System; Sarah Cornell, Colin Prentice, Joanna House, Catherine Downey 01 October 2013 - Green Party calls on UK Government, "Adopt C&C in international climate change negotiations." 1 October 2013 The Green Party have called upon the UK government to adopt Contraction and Convergence in international climate change negotiations Contraction and convergence, which would delegate fossil fuel use based on national population and limit the collective global output of CO2, would do much in the way of lessening human impact on climate change, Green Party has said. Aubrey Meyer, climate change campaigner, said that “since the world’s atmosphere belongs equally to everyone if it belongs to anyone at all, the only basis on which such an agreement seems possible is that there must – eventually at least – be an equal allocation to everyone in the world”. In response to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) most recent report, the European Greens have said that, “Policy makers around the world must show strong political will and do their utmost to reach an ambitious global climate deal in 2015”. Co-Chair of European Green Party, Reinhard Bütikofer, said: “This wake-up call is loud and clear…governments must commit to investing in sustainable, clean technologies”. The UK Government has yet to take a stance on the international regulation of carbon dioxide emissions. In light of the recent IPCC report, The Green Party urges the government to extend its concern for environmental protection beyond national perimeters.