A Workable Climate Change Pact

The road to global cooperation on climate change mitigation at the forthcoming Copenhagen Summit is currently gridlocked by an apparent direct clash of interests between the mitigation priorities of the developed countries and the growth priorities of the developing world. Nobel laureate Michael Spence has an imaginative strategy for getting around the gridlock that is both fair and efficient.

The International Panel on Climate Change, the acknowledged global authority on the subject, estimates that 50 years down the road the acceptable safe level of CO2 emissions will be about 14.7 billion tonnes or 2.3 tonnes per capita per year. The average emission today is about double that limit at 4.8 tonnes per head. In the absence of a serious mitigation effort this will rise further to about 8.7 tonnes per head or four times the safe limit by 2060 as many large high-growth developing countries approach the living standards and consumption patterns of the advanced countries.

Much of the CO2 emissions come at present from the advanced countries. USA and Canada in particular emit about 20 tonnes per head. The other advanced countries emit between 12 and 6 tonnes per head. Most developing countries, including India, emit well below the safe level of 2.3 tonnes per head and China just exceeds that benchmark. The developing countries accordingly maintain that the advanced countries have the responsibility to curb their emission levels.