Heute hatte ich das Privileg, einem vom Helsinki Process und TERI veranstalteten „Climate Change Forum on Ethics, Law, Economics and Politics“ beizuwohnen. Das Treffen wurde von Nitin Desai geleitet, dem früheren UN Untergeneralsekretär für ökonomische und soziale Fragen, Mitverfasser des Brundtland Reports und Generalsekretär des Johannesburg Gipfels.
Im zweiten Teil des Forums trat Sir Nicolas Stern auf, der Verfasser des berühmten „Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change„. Ich kannte ihn von der Präsentation des Stern Review vor etwas mehr als einem Jahr in Berlin.
Um so beeindruckter war ich, mit welcher Klarheit er eine unbequeme Wahrheit aussprach: Die von in ihren Reden Merkel implizierte Formel von „Contraction and Convergence“, das Konvergieren der Pro-Kopf-Emissionsrechte der Länder in einigen Dekaden (oft wird 2050 genannt), ist kein großzügiges Angebot des Nordens an die Entwicklungsländer. Es ist in der Tat eine „spektakulär schwache Form von Gerechtigkeit“ („a spectacularly weak form of equity“, Nicolas Stern).
„Contraction and Convergence“ ist ein Prinzip, nachdem die Länder entsprechend ihren heutigen Emissionen mit Emissionsrechte ausgestattet werden, und diese langfristig sukzessive auf ein nachhaltiges Niveau reduziert werden, das gleichen Emissionsrechten pro Kopf entspricht. Es ist wegen seiner Einfachheit und Eleganz viel zitiert und unterstützt. Auf „Contraction and Convergence“ basieren die vielfach zitierten Reduktionsziele für Deutschland um 80% bis 2050.
Nicolas Stern verglich nun dieses Prinzip mit Menschen, die aus einem gemeinsamen Gefäß trinken. Der eine trinkt sehr viel, der andere trinkt nur sehr wenig. Das Gefäss ist schon halb leer. Der eine schöpft bisher mit einer großen Tasse, der andere mit einer kleinen. Wenn der Säufer seinem sparsamen gegenüber anbietet, dass ganz am Ende, wenn das Gefäß leer ist, beide ihren Verbrauch auf die gleiche Tassengröße reduzieren, dann ist das kein sehr großzügiges Angebot. Sondern eben „spektakulär schwach“.
So ambitioniert es also aussieht, dass die EU (konditioniert) eine Reduktion um 30% bis 2020 anbietet: Es ist leider immer noch eine sehr schwache Form von Klimagerechtigkeit. Danke, Nicolas Stern, das in so bemerkenswert deutlicher Form auszusprechen.
Einen Maßstab, was ein faires System der Teilung von Klimaschutzlasten international bedeuten könnte, bietet das Greenhouse Development Rights-Konzept. Nicolas Stern und Joachim Schellnhuber haben jetzt auch ein Exemplar unserer Publikation „The Right to Development in a Climate-Constrained-World„. Wir hoffen, es bietet ihnen interessante Anregungen.
Mr Haas presents Mr Stern as a star critic of „Contraction and Convergence“.
Haas repeats Stern’s new argument that C&C is a „spectacularly weak form of justice“ – indeed citing [what for me is] a spectacularly weak form of C&C.
Mr Stern is clearly mentally challenged by the issue of accounting climate change mitigation with C&C, as this fundamentally reverses Mr Stern’s opinion of C&C for a third time in one year.
His much vaunted report, dismissed C&C as an ‚assertion‘ [not an argument] and then asserted the preposterous viuew that 550 ppmv atmosphere concnetration of CO2 can be achieved for a mere one percent of GDP. [The damages from climate change will overwhelm this account within decades – it is too little too late].
Stern then went on to tell his students that C&C as equal rights was, „too difficult to get your head around“.
He then went on [only weeks ago in Potsdam] and signed the nobel-laureate statement [below] asserting the: –
“ Principle of carbon justice, i.e. striving for a long-term convergence to equal-per-capita emissions rights accomplished through a medium-term multi-stage approach accounting for differentiated national capacities.
Mr Stern has been poorly advised and – like Mr Haas and his climate-equity clique – has not done his own homework adequately.
The C&C calculus is clearly laid out here against the backdrop of the ‚coupled model‘ runs from the Hadley Centre now in IPCC AR4: –
http://www.gci.org.uk/Animations/BENN_C&C_Animation_%5BTower_&_Ravens%5D.exe
This shows the narrowing opportunity we now face and is the basis of any globally numerate response to climate change.
Aubrey Meyer
GCI
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
• Global target such as the 2°C-limit for planetary warming relative to
pre-industrial levels or the (largely equivalent) halving of worldwide
greenhouse emissions by 2050. It is useful to view those emissions as
the product of two crucial factors, namely per capita emissions times
population. Both of these must be appropriately addressed to attain the
long-term stabilization target.
• Series of consistent short and medium-term emissions reduction
targets, essential to drive investment and technology and to minimize
the need for greater action later.
• Leadership role of industrialized countries, both regarding drastic
emissions reductions and development of low/no-carbon technologies in
order to give poor developing countries room for urgently needed
economic growth within the boundaries of a global carbon regime.
• Principle of carbon justice, i.e. striving for a long-term convergence
to equal-per-capita emissions rights accomplished through a medium-term
multi-stage approach accounting for differentiated national capacities.
• Carbon price, as generated, for instance, through an international
cap-and-trade system (of systems) based on auctioning permits.
• Establishment of a powerful worldwide process supporting
climate-friendly innovation and cooperation, combined with increased
funding for RD&D including basic research, to facilitate technology
transfer and proliferation.
• Major contributions to a multinational funding system for enhancing
adaptive capacities.
• Scaled-up efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation and
accelerate ecologically appropriate reforestation, achievable through
the creation of new incentives for communities and countries to preserve
and even increase their forests.
• Reductions of non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions.
Participants
Nobel Laureates
Prof. Zhores Alferov (Nobel Prize in Physics 2000), Russian Academy of
Sciences & Foundation Alferov, Russia
Prof. Murray Gell-Mann (Nobel Prize in Physics 1969), Santa Fe Institute
Prof. David Gross (Nobel Prize in Physics 2004), University of
California, Santa Barbara
Prof. Theodor Hänsch (Nobel Prize in Physics 2005), Ludwig Maximilians
University, Munich
Prof. Alan Heeger (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2000), University of
California, Santa Barbara
Prof. Sir Antony Hewish (Nobel Prize in Physics 1974), University of
Cambridge
Prof. Klaus von Klitzing (Nobel Prize in Physics 1985), Max Planck
Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart
Prof. Walter Kohn (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1998), University of
California, Santa Barbara
Prof. Wangari Muta Maathai (Nobel Prize in Peace 2004), Green Belt
Movement
Prof. Rudolph Marcus (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1992), California
Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Prof. Sir James Mirrlees (Nobel Prize in Economics 1996), University of
Cambridge and Chinese University, Hong Kong
Prof. Mario Molina (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1995), University of
California, San Diego (revised)
Prof. Carlo Rubbia (Nobel Prize in Physics 1984), CERN, Geneva
Prof. Amartya Sen (Nobel Prize in Economics 1998), Harvard University
Prof. Sir John Sulston (Nobel Prize in Physiology/ Medicine 2002),
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge
Contributors
Dr. Angela Merkel, Federal Chancellor
Matthias Platzeck, Minister President of Brandenburg
Sigmar Gabriel, Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature
Conservation and Nuclear Safety
Dr. Annette Schavan, Federal Minister for Education and Research
Prof. Johanna Wanka, Minister for Science, Research and Culture of the
State of Brandenburg
Prof. Frieder Meyer-Krahmer, State Secretary, Federal Ministry of
Education and Research
Prof. Markus Antonietti, Director, Max Planck Institute for Colloid and
Boundary Layer Research, Potsdam
Prof. Carlo Carraro, Chairman, Department of Economics, University “Ca’
Foscari” of Venice
Dr. Peter Frey, editor in chief, Berlin studios of ZDF German television
Prof. Mohamed Hassan, President, African Academy of Sciences and
Executive Director, Academy of Sciences for the Developing World/ TWAS,
Trieste
Barbara Hendricks, opera singer, Honorary Ambassador For Life for the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Founder of the Barbara
Hendricks Foundation for Peace and Reconciliation
Prof. Sir Brian Hoskins, Former Head of the Meteorological Department,
University of Reading
Prof. Daniel Kammen, Director, Renewable and Appropriate Energy
Laboratory (RAEL), University of California, Berkeley
Prof. Paul Klemperer, Edgeworth Professor of Economics, Oxford
University
Jim Leape, Director General, World Wide Fund for Nature, Gland
Prof. Diana Liverman, Director of Oxford University’s Environmental
Change Institute
Prof. Joachim Luther, Former Director of Fraunhofer Institute for Solar
Energy Systems (ISE), Advisor to the German Government on research and
innovation
Ian McEwan, English novelist and Fellow of the Royal Society of
Literature, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Prof. Volker ter Meulen, Professor Emeritus, Institute for Virology and
Immunology, University Würzburg; President of the German Academy of
Sciences, Leopoldina, Halle/Saale
Prof. Jürgen Mlynek, President, German Helmholtz Association, Berlin
Prof. Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Professor of Energy Economics at Vienna
University of Technology
Dr. Sunita Narain, Director, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE),
New Delhi
Prof. Michael Oppenheimer, Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences
and International Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School and the
Department of Geosciences at Princeton University
Prof. Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change); Director General, TERI, New Delhi
Prof. Kirit Parikh, Member, Planning Commission, Government of India,
New Delhi; Professor Emeritus and Founding Director, Indira Gandhi
Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai
Prof. George Poste, Director, The Biodesign Institute, Arizona State
University
Ambassador William C. Ramsay, Deputy Executive Director, International
Energy Agency, Paris
Prof. Johan Rockström, Director, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI)
Dr. Karsten Sach, Director, Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature
Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Berlin
Achim Steiner, Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP); Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Nairobi
Prof. Matthias Steinmetz, Director, Astrophysical Institute Potsdam
(AIP)
Prof. Sir Nicholas Stern, IG Patel Professor and Director, India
Observatory and Asia Research Centre, London School of Economics and
Political Science
Prof. Klaus Töpfer, Former Executive Director, United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP), Nairobi
Prof. Robert Watson, Chief Scientist and Director for Sustainable
Development at the World Bank
Prof. Carl Christian von Weizsäcker, Director emeritus of the Institute
of Energy Economics at the University of Cologne; Max Planck Institute
for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn
Prof. Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker, Dean, Bren School of Environmental
Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara
Prof. Geoffrey West, President, Santa Fe Institute
Anders Wijkman, Member of the European Parliament; Member of the Royal
Swedish Academy of Science
Convenor
Prof. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director, Potsdam Institute for Climate
Impact Research (PIK); Chief Climate Advisor to the German Government
Dear Aubrey,
thanks for the nice simulation. It is really very beautiful and instructive. What it amounts to, is very fast contraction to very low levels until 2050, and immediate convergence. Per capita rights now!
I support the general idea and I would like to see a comparison of the GDRs framework with an immediate convergence approach. Probably the GDRs framework would result in more stringent „burdens“ to be place on developed countries.
Still, contraction and convergence is still interpreted by many (including Merkel and the Potsdam Memorandum) as amounting to convergence in the long term (e.g. 2050), not immediate convergence. It is there where I would agree with Nick Stern: This is a „spectacularly weak form of equity“. Much better than simple grandfathering, certainly. Maybe the best form of equity we may get. But still spectacularly weak.
There is no equity on a dead planet. Likewise, there is no planet without rates of C&C that are fast enough to: –
[1] stave off the positive feedback accelerator that we now step onto and [2] subject to requirement one, pre-allocate rationally under that contraction limit at a convergence rate which is an acceleration relative to one but an agreed compromise between those who argue for ’slow-late‘ versus those who argue for ‚fast-soon‘.