FRAMEWORK FOR INCLUDING EQUITY IN CLIMATE CHANGE
April 17, 2001
By Klaus Töpfer
Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my privilege to be with such a distinguished audience today. I am sure you had a lively discussion on the very important issue of equity and climate change. I personally would like to thank Eileen Clausen and her staff for recognising this critical issue within climate change by hosting an international meeting.
Climate change, unlike any other environmental problem, has the potential to undermine social welfare and equity in an unprecedented manner. Our IPCC report particularly demonstrates the plight of poorer nations and disadvantaged groups within nations that are especially vulnerable to climate related disasters.
In this respect we face a dual challenge. First, to promote those actions that minimise adverse changes in climate. Secondly, to ensure that while doing so we do not worsen the existing inequity, globally and within nations -- though climate change policy cannot be expected to address all prevailing equity issues.
Achieving this important, though ambitious aim requires a decision-making framework that ensures internalisation of equity concerns. This primarily requires: (a) the establishment of an equitable and participative global framework for making and implementing collective decisions about climate change; and (b) reducing the potential for social disruption and conflicts arising from climate change impacts.
Diversity of interests
Such a framework is important to shrink the wide gap between what is needed and what has been agreed globally by considering the extreme diversity between countries on the issue of climate change. Both emissions and the capability to emit carbon to the atmosphere are unevenly distributed around the world. A dozen countries approximately control 95 per cent of conventional carbon resources and fifteen nations emit more than 75 per cent of the world's annual carbon emissions.
Therefore the nations with high GHG emissions, but low expected climate change impacts, have a high potential to control CO2 concentrations, but little incentive. On the other hand, nations with low emissions and high impacts have great incentive to control emissions, but little authority. This sharply brings out the question of equity at two different levels. Firstly poor countries fear a prospect of getting their low per capita GHG emissions frozen to protect the atmosphere. Secondly, the plight of countries vulnerable to adverse impact of climate change, such as small island nations, least developed countries, is serious, but they have little say in deciding their future.
Poverty and Climate Change
The current projections of carbon emissions in developing countries reflect their low per capita emissions compared to industrialised countries. However, if the current growth in existing per capita emissions continue and human population increases, then developing country contribution to local pollution and atmospheric concentrations of carbon will be very significant in the future. This combined with the high emissions from the industrialised countries hold the potential to cause catastrophic climate change reflecting that both the rich and the poor can harm future generations.
The need for economic growth to eradicate poverty by poor countries is universally acknowledged. But the energy path to achieve the economic growth needs to be considered to avoid any climate catastrophe in the future.
Poverty eradication policies until now have largely been based on the recognition of only the use value of a resource when it contributes to a productive process. Waste assimilation for example has been assumed to be automatic and not to have any adverse affect on future economies, environmental quality or amenity values. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the earlier Montreal Protocol to phase-out ozone depleting substances challenged this concept and recognised the value of waste assimilative capacity - a stock resource - and the inability of the atmosphere to cope with increasing loads of CO2 emissions.
Since industrialised countries have used a significant share of the waste assimilative capacity of the global atmosphere, it is in their interest to provide incentives to poorer countries to regulate their resource use to get a breathing space for themselves.
This calls for new forms of investment in developing countries, which increases production without taking from the environment and the ecological processes that maintain it. Decoupling GHG emissions from human activities is an important step in mitigating climate change.
How does it impact the majority of the world population living under conditions of absolute poverty (e.g., over 3 billion persons subsist on less than USD1 per day). It means adopting a climate change strategy that would modify the structure of growth, instead of restricting it. This would be the most attractive option for taking equity into consideration.
This of course requires a long-term strategy. The basic premise being that carbon emissions will rise more rapidly during the early stages of development and begin to decline only when per capita incomes are high enough. If developing countries were to follow the growth path of the industrialised world, then atmospheric concentrations of GHGs would soon rise to dangerous levels.
Efficient use of resources has shaped traditional societies, but it requires new scientific, technological, and systemic knowledge to handle the threat of climate change. The Kyoto Mechanisms, especially the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has the potential to help developing countries receive some of this scientific, technological knowledge to meet their rapidly growing energy demand for eradication of poverty.
The manner in which Kyoto mechanisms are implemented globally and nationally will determine its real impact on equity. Therefore, it is necessary that before the implementation of these mechanisms, each user's rights, entitlements and obligations are as fully specified as possible. It should be clear who pays, who can profit, who can pollute, who can degrade and who can control. This means that right and obligation systems need to be coupled in preparation for the use of these mechanisms.
The implementation of the Kyoto mechanisms requires strong incentives to change investment patterns and simulate technological innovation, maximise real GHG emission reductions and not focus narrowly on minimising short-term costs. Kyoto Mechanisms need to take into account capacity building of the poorest and most vulnerable peoples in adapting to climate change while providing investments required in these countries to move to a climate-friendly development path.
The review system of Kyoto mechanisms can also ensure equity. Currently the CO2 emission rights are allocated according to existing emission patterns with a specified percentage reduction for various countries within the certain period of 5 years (2008-2012). By agreeing to these reduction targets, industrialised countries need not continue emitting unsustainable per-capita levels of GHG pollution putting the poorest countries having the lowest per-capita emissions in a disadvantageous position by restricting their future economic growth.
While initial allocation is consistent with existing emissions, the redistribution through periodical review of Kyoto Protocol can be continued to achieve a balance in the utilisation of the assimilative capacity of the atmosphere.
Vulnerable Countries
Still, ensuring equity between the poor and the rich on emission does not protect the people most vulnerable to climate change. Recognising the longevity of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere climate changes in the future is inevitable.
This requires efforts to adapt to climate change where it is cost-effective and feasible to do so. Little effort has been undertaken to identify funding for activities which help vulnerable countries better adapt to climate change, a vital aspect of equity.
There are of course reasons for this lack of interest in adaptation. Many experts feared that emphasising adaptation conveys the message that mitigation efforts are not having the desired effect and climate change is inevitable or, that climate change is manageable therefore mitigation efforts are unnecessary.
There is also a perception that future climate impacts must be known with some degree of specificity before it is possible to plan adaptation responses. Present global circulation and integrated assessment models do not have the capability to accurately predict climate impacts at regional or local scales. Few studies have attempted to analyse adaptation strategies and the associated costs, especially in comparison to the costs of mitigation.
This needs to change, for the sake of countries that are most vulnerable to potential impacts of climate change. Human-induced climate change represents an important additional stress to the many ecological and socio-economic systems already affected by pollution, increasing resources demands, and non-sustainable management practices.
Developing countries can be generally categorised as more vulnerable due to limited financial and institutional bases to adapt to the added stress of climate change. The vulnerability of human health and socio-economic systems - and to a lesser extent, ecological systems - depends upon economic circumstances and institutional infrastructure. People who live on arid or semi-arid lands, in low-lying coastal areas, in water-limited or flood-prone areas, or on small islands are particularly vulnerable to climate change.
Delaying action in these countries will increase damage costs since climate-induced environmental changes cannot be reversed quickly, if at all, due to the long time scales associated with the climate system. This is a serious concern for countries, which are surviving on an environment already stretched to its capacity, and with no possibility of putting additional resources for escalating adaptation costs.
Therefore, precautionary investments, to assist human and natural systems to adapt to climate change become a necessity. While no-regrets principles can be employed to a certain extent in preparation for climate change and sea-level rise, considerable financial investment will eventually be necessary for preparedness measures and probably even more, together with extensive social costs, as forced adaptation becomes the inevitable consequence of not taking timely anticipatory actions.
We recognise that some adaptation is bound to take place at the local level. For instance, when we seek to evaluate the effect of climate change on food supply in the future, we should assume that new varieties of crops and improved methods of their management would be available. It is the additional innovations that we need to evaluate so that we can, ultimately, form a judgement as to the best combination of adaptation to impacts and mitigation of emissions that we should seek.
Countrywide policies could also influence adaptation, negatively or positively. For example, national policies that encouraged population movement into low-lying coastal areas might increase their vulnerability to future impacts of sea level rise. On the other hand, government actions to protect citizens from natural disasters could help to reduce vulnerability to extreme weather events associated with future climate change.
No magic formula
These actions require international co-operation to support a global framework that catalyses a shift in behaviour in industrialised as well as developing countries to reduce global GHG emissions as well assist the most vulnerable people to brace for a change in climate.
There is unlikely to be one magic formula that can achieve these goals and solve the dual problem of climate change and equity. However, from the operational viewpoint, establishing a framework to catalyse so-called "win-win" climate change strategies is a practical way to initiate this change -- i.e., strategies that enhance all three elements of sustainable development (economic, social and environmental).
In my long experience in environmental policy I have come to the conclusion that environmental problems succeed mainly when they are seen to be reinforcing mainstream domestic economic policies. This is true of industrialised as well as developing countries. In my view it demonstrates the increasing appreciation that, environmental policies have a potential to actually fortify and sustain economic aims of countries.
This is an approach UNEP would like to see in use when resolving environmental problems generally. The problem of climate change is perhaps the biggest test within this category, a challenge to ensure that investments made to limit carbon emissions, instead of reducing the wealth of nations, helps to increase and sustain it.