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Global Climate Change Negotiations

How Should the Developing Countries Respond

by Adil Najam
***1990 numbers for both population and emissions could be used to keep the calculations fair for high emitting as well as high population countries***
EARLY this month, a very significant meeting was held in Washington. D,C.
It was a meeting that policymaker* in the developing countries (the South) should take close note of because it could ultimately have serious economic and environmental impacts on their future.
The all-day meeting was called by the White House as a preparatory step towards the formulation of the U.S. negotiating position for the forthcoming climate change negotiations to be held in Japan later this
year. The meeting could possibly not have had a higher profile. It was actively chaired by President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore and had half their cabinet in attendance. The four panels included the leading lights of the U.S. academia, corporations and labour movement with presen tations from key policy players including the secretaries of State. Energy and the Treasury. However, the meeting was significant not simply because of who was there or the high level of policy concern that climate change is generating The meeting was significant—at least from a developing country perspective—because it seemed to spell a new direction In U.S. policy towards them.
Despite the blurred rhetoric of the meeting, the message seemed to be that for the industrialized world (the North) to be able to do anything on climate change, the South would also have to do its "share". Although the exact magnitude of this share was never laid out. it was very obvious that the U.S. will look unfavourably at any treaty that does not spell out binding emission restrictions for the developing countries.
What this means Is the unraveling of the finely crafted principle of "shared but differentiated responsibility’ in International environmental policy. If this turns out to be so. it would mean that developing countries would be asked to make 'similar', if not the same, percentage emission cuts. This, despite the fact that the historl cal and current responsibility for carbon emissions Ites squarely with the North (80 per cent of the emissions come from the 20 per cent of the world population living In the North). Moreover, this will contradlc the so-called "Berlin Mandate" of 1995 (which the U.S. signed) which promises that South will NOT be asked to forfeit Its development aspirations in the name of global warming.
Given how closely carbon emissions are linked to energy.
doing anything to significantly combat global warming cannot Kssibly be cheap. For the U.S.
hich produces 22 per cent of all emissions) the cost could run into hundreds of billions of dollars; even for developing countries which contribute a fraction thereof, the cost would be mammoth enough to put their entire economy in disarray. While the urgency of doing something is very real, the poor of the developing world cannot afford to pay the environmental bills of the industrialized rich. Al this critical Juncture in
the negotiations, it is vital that policy-makers in the South recognize this not-so-subtle shift in U.S. policy, understand its dire implications, and develop a concerted strategy to respond to it.
To be effective, any Southern strategy will have to dispel two common perceptions: first, that the developing countries are not really interested In the environment and. second, that they are merely using it as a new ploy for begging for money from the rich. This means that the developing countries need a strategy that a) Is proactive In that it clearly states that they are Interested in solving the issue and suggests concrete ways of doing so. and b) uses a principled stand instead of the begging bowl Io further their developmental Interests.
One such strategy could be to throw the proposals coming from the North back at them. To be specific, the proposal that the U tj. and many European powers seem to favour calls for an "emissions trading scheme* merged with "Joint implementation." The general idea Is to devise a semi-voluntary trading scheme, based on current net emissions, allowing the rich to Invest In poor countries to get "good behavior" credit. On the
face of it the scheme seems to have merit: the rich are able to buy cheaper abatement, and the poor get much needed resources. However, for the South it has many problems: it is akin to the medieval notion "buying indulgences' by paying gold to have {our sins absolved; it provides Ittle incentive for changes in consumption; it does not penalize bad behavior: it overlooks sovereignty considerations; and. finally, it ignores the longterm: what will happen when the efficiency gains dry up (which will happen soon enough) or as developing actually develop.
The developing countries should do Itetter than just raise 4hese concerns. They should turn them around ana suggest their own counter proposal. This Is what the South should say to the North. We think a trading scheme IS a good idea and are willing to go along with It as long as It is based not on half-baked notions of Joint implementation and voluntary arrangements bnt on the firmer grounds of a principle of per capita pollution rights.' If. indeed. the atmosphere is a global common then every individual—whether from the rich North or the poor South— should have equal rights over Its use and equal responsibilities for its upkeep. Let us. then, give property rights to the atmosphere to the citizens of the world. Let us determine the average level of emission per person that the atmosphere can sustain and designate that as the per capita pollution right to be managed by the individual's country. Those who emit more than tills would be required to "buy" pollution space from those who emit less that their El. 1990 numbers for both lation and emissions could erf to keep the calculations fair for high emitting as well as high populaUon countries.
There are many advantages to such a proposal. First, such a scheme sends the right messages to both North and South, encouraging the first to reduce emissions and the later to keep them low. Second, it is based on moral principle rather than on an arbitrary allocation. Third. Instead of turning developing countries into beggars it places them on an equal footing with the industrialized nations giving them the exact same rights and responsibilities. Fourth, it provides a viable mechanism for debt relief for the poorest countries. Fifth, it is based on a market instrument and meshes with the ideological template of our times. Sixth, it can bypass the sovereignty quagmire because countries are free to raise and spend the monies as they like. Finally. It is long-term in character: once established it can maintain itself until it dies out when all countries reach emissions that are at or below their per capita quotas.
The idea itself is not new. However, it is an idea whose time has finally come. Substantively. this has always been the best option for the South. Strategically, there are at least two reasons why this is the right time for the South to put forth this proposal. First, having themselves called for a trading scheme, the North cannot simply dismiss a proposal which is based on the exact same principle. Second, there could possibly be no better response to the new policy vibes coming from the Washington. They are criticizing the South for not fulfilling Its environmental responsibility; this can be the South's way of retorting back, "OK. If you want equal we will give you equal—but equal means equal... in responsibility AS WELL AS rights.
The writer, from Pakistan, teaches international relations and environmental policy at Boston University and is also the Associate Director of the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.