Description
Contraction & Convergence, developed by the Global Commons Institute, is a global framework for an assured limit to future carbon emissions and their equitable allocation.
Step 1: (Contraction)
- As a planet, we must first take scientific advice on the state of our atmosphere and decide how much more carbon the planet can risk burning - in order to stabilise atmospheric CO2 concentrations at a level that would avoid catastrophic runaway climate change.
- This represents the global carbon budget. This budget represents the remaining total amount of carbon that will be burnt between now and the day emissions drop to zero.
- The budget is split up into annual allocations. There is a year-on-year contraction (or reduction) in the size of the annual global allocation.
Step 2: (Convergence)
- Having defined the global budget of carbon and its contraction over time, it is then necessary to decide how it will be shared out to each country.
- At present, countries in the industrialized world emit much more CO2 per capita than those in the developing countries. The “Convergence” objective of C&C is to move from this unequal situation to one where everyone on the planet has an equal share or entitlement to emit CO2
- Poor countries have suffered most from climate change so far, and currently burn very little carbon. However, they now want their turn for access to carbon to fuel their development, or at least to have an equal share per person of the total carbon the world can now safely burn.
- C&C allocates emission entitlements to every country. Starting with current emissions levels, it proposes a scheduled convergence to equal per-capita entitlements for everyone on the planet by an agreed date.
- By doing this, convergence reduces the carbon shares of the rich, highly emitting countries until they converge with the (temporarily rising) shares of poorer, low-emitting countries.
- To aid the process, countries whose emissions in any given year fall below their allocation can sell entitlement to countries that cannot reduce their emissions quickly enough. Poorer countries are therefore able to fund economic development to a low-carbon pathway, while richer nations can buy themselves time to achieve the necessary reductions.
At present, the existing socio-economic framework works against the widespread adoption of less carbon-intensive technologies. Although this is partly due to existing infrastructure and the influence of vested interests, the main reason is that the external costs of burning fossils fuels have not yet been fully internalised.
Read more about C&C at www.gci.org.uk
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