On the Extraordinary Urgency of Nations Responding to Climate Change on the Basis of Equity

7/28/2019 On the Extraordinary Urgency of Nations Responding to Climate Change on the Basis of Equity

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/on-the-extraordinary-urgency-of-nations-responding-to-climate-change-on-the 1/11

Donald Brown

OntheExtraordinaryUrgencyofNationsRespondingToClimateChangeonthe

BasisofEquity.

This article seeks to explain in understandable terms why nations must not only

aggressively respond to climate change but respond at levels required of them by

equity if the world is going to have any hope of avoiding dangerous climate change.

And so, this article seeks to help citizens around the world understand why their

nations must create climate change policies consistent with their equitableobligations and that if their nations fail to respond on the basis of equity, there is vey

little hope of an adequate global solution emerging that has any potential of avoiding

catastrophic climate change.

Once again there has been some renewed interest in responding to climate change

this week in response to the announcement by the National Oceanic and

Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that carbon dioxide (CO2) atmospheric

concentrations have reached 400 ppm (parts per million). This concentration of CO2

is not only higher than experienced in the last 3 million years of Earth’s history

(Kunzig, 2013), it is additional evidence that the world is rapidly running out of time to

Adaptation and Responsibility forDamages (13)

agenda 21 (4)

Allocation Issues (15)Atmospheric Targets (27)

cancun (3)

cap and trade (3)

climate change and markets (9)

climate change commercials (1)

climate change disinformation (12)

climate change ethics (41)

climate change governence (11)

climate change impacts (5)

climate change policy-making (32)

climate change video (3)

climate ethics (17)

Contraction and Convergence (3)

Copenhagen (7)

crime against humanity (7)

Home StartHereandIndex AboutEthicsandClimate Blogroll Contact

Search

Subscribe

Categories

e Extraordinary Urgency of Nations Responding To Climate Change o... http://blogs.law.widener.edu/climate/2013/05/09/on-the-extraord

1 7/10/2013



prevent dangerous climate change. NOAA posted on its website Wednesday night,

May 9, that the daily average for CO2 was 400.03 ppm. (Kunzig, 2013) The last

time the concentration of the CO2 reached this mark, horses and camels lived in the

high Arctic and seas were at least 30 feet higher. (Kunzig, 2013) This sea level rise

would inundate major cities around the world and cause harm to hundreds of millions

around the world when temperatures finally responded to these elevated greenhouse

gas (ghg) atmospheric concentrations.

Although this story made it to the front page of the New York Times, (see Schuetze

2013), the US press continues to fail to educate American citizens fully about the

seriousness of the problem that the world is facing particularly in regard to the urgent

need of nations to take immediate steps to reduce their emissions to their fair share

of safe global ghg emissions. Ethicsandclimate.org has previously examined the

failure of the US press to communicate to American people the importance of the

equity issue in formulating US policy. (See, The US Media’s Grave Failure To

Communicate The Significance of Understanding Climate Change as A Civilization

Challenging Ethical Issue.Yet, as we will explain, in light of the rapidly decreasing

amount of time remaining for the world to prevent dangerous climate change, there is

now more than ever a need to increase political support at the national level around

the world for the adoption of policies on climate change that reflect each nation’s fair

share of safe global emissions.

When almost all nations around

the world agreed to the 1992

United Nations Framework

Convention on Climate Change

(UNFCCC), they promised to

adopt policies and measures to

limit warming based upon

“equity” to prevent dangerous

anthropogenic interference with

the climate system. (UNFCCC,Art. 3) Up until very recently it was possible for nations to ignore that they had a

responsibility to reduce their ghg emissions to levels based upon “equity.” And so

many, if not most, nations have been entering international climate negotiations as if

they need only look to their national economic interest to determine what ghg

emissions reductions commitments they need to make under the UNFCCC.

However, now that the world is running out of time to prevent dangerous climate

change, the urgent need of nations to reduce their emissions to levels required of

them on the basis of equity and basic fairness is now obvious and undeniable. This

was not the case only a few years ago. For instance, just three years ago it was

possible for the United States to ignore what was required of it as a matter of basic

fairness because nations were happy when the United States made any commitmentto reduce its ghg emissions having refused to do so from the early 1990s through

2010. Any US commitment was viewed as a positive step. And so, when President

Obama made a voluntary commitment in 2010 in Copenhagen to reduce US

emissions by 17% below 2005 levels by 2020, it was widely celebrated throughout

the international community even though most observers knew this commitment was

far short of what justice required of the United States. Yet just two years later in

Qatar, the same US commitment was almost universally condemned on justice

grounds. (See: Qatar: Bumping Up Against Climate Change Limitations On Human

Activities Makes Ethical and J ustice Issues Unavoidable)

disinformation campaign (see alsoclimate change disinformation) (5)

Distributive and International J ustice(18)

Durban (2)

Duty to aknowledge risk (8)

Economics and Climate Change (23)

Economics and Cost (25)

equity and climate change (5)

ethical questions raised by climatechange (28)

ethics and energy policy (12)

ethics and scientific uncertainty, Addcategory (12)

ethics of anti-Agenda 21 campaign (3)

ethics of climate change (31)

fair ghg emissions targets (4)

General Climate Ethics (86)

global warming ethics (41)

Higher education and climate changeethics (3)

Human Rights-Universal Rights (7)

hurricanes and climate change (1)

Independent Responsibility to Act (11)

J ust allocation of gig emissions (2)

liability for climate change (1)

magnitude of needed greenhouseemissions reductions (5)

Market Theory (1)

Media and climate change (5)

Media Coverage of Climate Change(13)

Mitigation (4)

natural gas and climate change (1)

Obama and climate change (4)

Practical need to see climate changeethical issues Add category (6)

Presiden Obama and climate change (4)

press and climate change (8)

Procedural J ustice and Fair Process (8)

propaganda and climate change (2)

Qatar climate negotiations (2)


1 7/10/2013



The importance of each government entity’s responsibility to limit their emissions to

their fair share of safe global emissions has become undeniably obvious to most

observers of international climate negotiations now that it has become clear to all

that there is precious little time for the global community to avoid dangerous climate

change. The central importance of the need to get nations to respond to climate

change on the basis of “equity” becomes very obvious once a number of scientific

aspects of climate change are fully understood. However, too few people understand

these scientific aspects of climate change and the press is failing to educate citizens

about these issues.

To

fully understand the importance of national responses on the basis of “equity” it is

necessary to understand some features of climate change that make it unlike any

other environmental problem facing the world. The atmosphere is like a bathtub, it

has limited volume. Nations have been filling up the atmospheric bathtub since the

beginning of the industrial revolution in the late 1790s. Because CO2 is long-lived inthe atmosphere, the bathtub continues to fill up with CO2 even if rates of CO2

emissions slow down somewhat unless all ghg emissions are reduced to the rate at

which the Earth’s natural carbon cycle can remove CO2, an amount which is less

than 20% of existing emissions levels. Decreasing ghg emissions does not prevent

global atmospheric concentrations from increasing unless they are cut back globally

by huge amounts. And so to prevent dangerous climate change nations have to do

much more than cut back on the ghg emissions levels that they are entering the

atmosphere, they have to cooperate to prevent the level in the bath tub from

reaching levels that will cause dangerous climate change. As we shall see, this is a

level that the world is fast approaching. Furthermore because CO2 is well mixed in

the atmosphere it makes no difference where on Earth the ghgs come from, theatmospheric concentrations of ghg continue to rise without regard to location of the

source of emissions.

What makes the current climate change threat so ominous is that the levels of CO2

that have been building up for over 200 years are quickly approaching levels that

could trigger dangerous climate change as emissions are increasing in many parts

of the world.

In our experience, most Americans don’t understand the scale of the climate change

facing the world. In Copenhagen in 2010 the international community agreed to set

as a goal warming limit of 2°C not withstanding there are some scientific evidence to

reasonable skepticism (17)

renewable energy ethics (3)

Romney and climate (1)

scientific disinformation (20)

Scientific Uncertainty and Risk (35)

states and climate change (1)

subnational governments and climatechange (1)

sustainability ethics (9)

sustainability law (4)

sustainable development (5)

sustainable development ethics (4)

temperature limits (1)

the ethics of natural gas and climatechange (1)

tornadoes (1)

Trading Issues (2)

Uncategorized (2)

united nations (1)

US Climate Ethics (20)

US Congress and climate change ethics(14)

US media and climate change (7)

US participation in international climatenegotiations (11)

US responsibilitlty (26)

Video (11)

wind power (1)

An Ethical Analysis of Obama’s ClimateSpeech, the Adverse Political Reactionto It, and the Media Response.

Property Rights and Sustainability

Equity Remains At The Center of BonnClimate Change Talks

An Opportunity to Learn About LinksBetween Global Governance andEnvironmental Ethics

Responding To the Anti-Agenda 21

ArchivesMonth/Year

RecentlyBlogged


1 7/10/2013



believe that the warming limit should be lower at 1.5 °C. The 2°C warming limit was

chosen because there is strong scientific evidence that warming above 2°C could

trigger rapid nonlinear climate change thereby threatening hundreds of millions of

people around the world and the ecological systems on which they depend. Even if

2°C warming doesn’t trigger nonlinear warming, this amount of warming will cause

great harm around the world to people and places that have done little to cause

climate change.

The following graph describes the staggering challenge facing the world if the

international community desires to limit warming to 2°C. The graph depicts three

different emissions reductions pathways where the steepness of ghg emissions

reductions needed to limit 2°C depend upon when global emissions levels peak, that

is in 2015, 2020, or 2025. Despite over twenty years since the international

community agreed in 1992 to adopt policies and measures based upon equity to

prevent dangerous climate change, global ghg emissions levels continue to rise

despite a global economic turn down in 2008. Global CO2 emissions grew 3 percent

in 2011 and were estimated to rise 2.6 in 2012. (Morello, 2012). Since the

international community began to negotiate a climate change solution, rather then

emissions levels diminishing they have grown to 58 percent above the 1990

emissions level in 2012 (Morello, 2012). And so, the world is facing the urgent need

to reduce ghg emissions at hard to imagine rates as seen in the following graph

where the different colored lines on this chart represent different assumptions about

climate sensitivity. This graph shows that if the world waits to act together to prevent

ghg emissions from rising until 2020 or 2025, the world will need to reduce ghg

emissions at staggering reduction levels after the peak years.

(Anderson, K..

2012)

On the basis of the magnitude of the ghg emissions reductions challenge facing the

world, mainstream scientists around the world are now emphatically trying to get the

world’s attention about the urgency of the need to act dramatically to prevent

dangerous climate change. Yet there has been little discussion in the media about

the importance of equity in national responses to this global emergency coupled with

the fact that one needs to understand other aspects of the climate change problem

to fully understand the importance of requiring nations to reduce their emissions

based upon “equity.”

Once one identifies an atmosphere ghg concentration level that will serve as a goal

for preventing dangerous warming it is a relatively straightforward calculation to

identify the remaining amounts of ghg emissions that can be emitted worldwide to

prevent atmospheric ghg concentrations from exceeding the maximum concentration

goal. This calculation is the basis for determining an emissions budget. Because

there is some uncertainty about climate sensitivity, that is how much warming the

Earth will experience at different atmospheric ghg concentrations, different

atmospheric ghg concentration goals create different levels of probability of limiting

warming to 2°C. The following chart identifies the quantity of ghg emissions in

gigatons of CO2 equivalent that the world may emit to achieve different levels of

Disinformation Campaign: A RigorousLook At The Campaign’s UntruthfulClaims.

Charles Mulenga on An Ethical Analysisof Obama’s Climate Speech, theAdverse Political Reaction to It, and the

Media Response.

CHARLES AGBOKLU on An EthicalAnalysis of Obama’s Climate Speech,the Adverse Political Reaction to It, andthe Media Response.

Donald A. Brown on An Ethical Analysisof Obama’s Climate Speech, theAdverse Political Reaction to It, and theMedia Response.

J ohn Lemons on An Ethical Analysis of Obama’s Climate Speech, the AdversePolitical Reaction to It, and the MediaResponse.

Donald A. Brown on Property Rights andSustainability

Agenda 21 and ethics anti-Agenda

21campaign barriers toclimate change policybarriers to sustainability cliamte

justice climate change climatechange andmorality climate changedenial climate changedeniers climate change disinformation

climate change disinformation

campaign

climate change policyclimate change skepticism climate change

skeptics climate change videoclimate ethics climate

ethics and policyeconomics and ethics of climate change

equity and climate change

ethics and climate

change policy Ethics andGlobal Warming ethics of

climate change ethics of globalwarming fair allocation of national

RecentCom ments

Tags


1 7/10/2013



probability that the 2° C warming limit will not be exceeded. Therefore we see from

this chart that if the entire world is assumed to be allowed to emit no more than 886

gigatons (Gt) of CO2 equivalent, this budgetary limit creates between a 8% and

37%, with a best estimate of 20%, probability that temperatures will exceed the

warming limit of 2°C. At the upper end of this chart, a 1437 Gt CO2 budgetary limit

creates a probability of between 29 to 70 probability, with a best estimate of 50%,

that the 2°C warming limit will be exceeded.

The chart also shows that if the world emits ghgs at levels projected at 56 Gt per

year, then, assuming that the world chooses to live with a budget of 886 Gt CO2

which gives the world an 80% probability that future warming will be limited to 2°C,

then after12 years there will be zero emissions left in the budget. The chart also

demonstrates that even if the world chooses to run the risk of accepting a 50%

probability that the 2°C warming will be exceeded then world can only emit

greenhouse gases at projected levels for 22 years.

As gloomy as this picture in regard to the remaining global ghg emissions budget, we

have not yet explained why getting nations to commit to reduce their emissions to

levels required of them by equity is so important and indispensable for thinking

clearly about how the world must respond to the threat of climate change. And so,

now, for the first time, we can explain the importance of “equity” in guiding

international responses to climate change.

greenhouse gas targets globalwarming ethics global

warming video introduction to climate ethics

Obama and climate change obstacles to

sustainability Qatar climate change negotiations

Romney and Climate Change scientificuncertainty and climatechange skepticism and climate

change sustainability ethicssustainable development and ethics. the

media and climate change US climatechange policy USethical responsibilityfor climate change.US media and climatechange US media failure on

climate change US press andclimate change USresponse to climate

change video on climatechange ethics

Log in

Entries RSS

Comments RSS

WordPress.org

Meta


1 7/10/2013



Returning to the use of a bathtub as a metaphor for the atmosphere, we note that

there is already elevated levels of ghg (metaphorically water) in the bathtub that have

risen to current levels from over 200 years of human activities. That is CO2 has

increased in the atmosphere from 280 ppm to 400 ppm since the beginning of the

industrial revolution. If we assume that atmospheric concentrations of CO2

equivalent should be limited to 450 ppm to give the world a 50% chance of keepingwarming from exceeding the 2°C warming limit, atmospheric concentrations have

increased already by120 ppm from pre-industrial levels and only 50 ppm of

atmospheric space are left to allocate to the entire world. The 120 ppm increase in

atmospheric CO2 concentrations that has already been put into the bathtub by

human activities has overwhelmingly been caused by activities in some rich,

developed countries much more than poor developing countries. The following chart

shows which countries have contributed the most elevated concentrations of CO2 in

the atmosphere.

(EPA, 2002)

And so some countries more than others have contributed far more than others toelevated ghg concentrations. Given that there’s only 50 ppm of atmospheric space

left to allocate (assuming and atmospheric goal of 450ppm giving approximately a 50

% chance of exceeding the 2°C) and some developing countries desperately need

to use the remaining atmospheric space to escape grinding poverty, it is obviously

unfair or inequitable to require all countries to reduce emissions by the same

amount.


1 7/10/2013



Furthermore, the above chart demonstrates that some countries including the United

States, Canada, and Australia, for instance, far exceed others in per capita levels

of emissions from their citizens compared to other countries such as India.

If it is determined that the entire world must reduce its emissions by 80% below 1990

levels to prevent dangerous climate change, high-emitting nations or governments

around the world, including the US, Canada, and Australia, will need to reduce their

emissions to even greater levels on the basis of equity and fairness. To require each

nation or government to reduce emissions by the same percentage amount would

freeze into place unjust emission levels for high-emitting governments and very low

emissions rates for poor developing countries. For this reason, almost all the

nations of the world, including the United States in 1992 when it ratified the

UNFCCC, agreed that each nation must reduce its emissions on the basis of

“equity” to prevent dangerous climate change. (UNFCCC, 1992: Art 3, Para 1) If all

nations need only reduce their emissions by equal percentage amounts, then a

high-emitting nation like the United States that emits ghg at rate of 17.3 tons per

capita would be allowed to emit at a level 10 times more per capita than a country

like Vietnam that emits 1.7 tons of ghg per capita. (World Bank, 2012b) As a result,

all nations have agreed that national targets must be based upon fairness or equity.

Given that the entire world has only 50 ppm of atmospheric space left to allocate to

give the world a reasonable expectation of preventing dangerous climate change,

the equitable and fairness dimensions of national ghg emissions reductions

commitments become obvious and crucial to increasing the ambition of nations to

reduce their ghg emissions. Yet most citizens seem completely unaware of the equity

issues entailed by climate change and many high-emitting nations are ignoring their

equitable responsibilities.

However, the ability of nations to ignore what equity requires of them will become

more and more difficult as the world wakes up to the hard-to-imagine stringent

carbon budget that the world must face to avoid catastrophe warming. In addition thelonger nations wait to respond to climate change on the basis of equity, the more

difficult it will be in the future to do so because the steepness of their emissions

reductions pathways needed to comply with what equity requires increases the

longer nations wait to respond appropriately.

References:

Anderson, Ken, (2012) , Climate Change Going Beyond Dangerous , Brutal

Numbers, Tenous Hope, http://whatnext.org/resources/Publications/Volume-

III/Single-articles/wnv3_andersson_144.pdf

EPA, (2002), CO2 emissions by count ry (http://www.epa.gov/climatechange

/emissions/)

Kunzig, Robert, (2013) National Geographic News, Climate Milestone: CO2 Level

Passes 400 ppm, National Geographic, http://news.nationalgeographic.com

/news/energy/2013/05/130510-earth-co2-milestone-400-ppm/

Morello, (2012), Global CO2 Emissions from Fossil-Fuel Burning Rise into

High-Risk Zone, Scientific American, http://www.scientificamerican.com

/article.cfm?id=global-co2-emissions-from

Open Source, (2013) http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming

/what-we-dont-know


1 7/10/2013



Category: Atmospheric Targets, climate change ethics, climate ethics, equity and climatechange, fair ghg emissions targets, General Climate Ethics, J ust allocation of gig emissions,sustainability ethicsTag: cliamte justice, climate change and morality, climate change ethics, climate ethics, distributive

justice and climate change, equity and climate change, equity and national ghg emissions, Ethics andClimate Change, Ethics and Global Warming, nation's fair share of safe global emissions, nationalclimate change policy and equity, US ethical responsibility for climate change.

May9,2013at11:44pm 10comments DonaldA.Brown

World Bank, (2012), CO2 Emissions (Metric Tons Per Capita),

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), (1992),

http://unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/background/items/1349.php

By:

Donald A. BrownScholar In Residence,

Sustainable Development Ethics and Law

Widener University School of Law

dabrown57@gmail. com

May19,2013at3:37am Reply

JohnLemons says:

Don:

As you know, I have long been encouraging to write about the urgency of the AGW

problem. In this blog, you have written what I believe not is your best blog but one of the best, if not the best, written about AGW. It absolutely excellent.

A couple of comments/questions, although none meant to be critical:

1. I understand why the 2C degrees temperature rise is used. However, as you

know, most science is now telling us that a so–called ‘safe’ level for temperature rise

is about 1.5C degrees, which computes to about 350 ppm carbon dioxide eq. instead

of 450 ppm eq. This, of course, makes your article all that much more scary.

2. My primary question now, given this exemplary article of yours, is following your

arguments about the urgency of the problem, what does this imply for considerations

of ethics to resolve the problem. Surely, if the problem is as urgent as you describe,

which I and many other scientists believe, urgency itself must allow the use of

different ethics or modes of conduct to resolve the problem. Any thoughts about

this? (Hint: I think this should be your next blog topic)

Don, thanks so much for writing this very excellent piece.

J ohn Lemons

DonaldA.Brown says:

10Responses


1 7/10/2013



May19,2013at5:09pm Reply

Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I agree completely that ethical discussion of

the 1.5 degree warming limit is well worth pursuing and a very important topic in

itself which has largely been ignored in policy circles. Secondly, as you know, I

strongly support non-violent civil disobedience as an ethically defensible response

to climate change. I do think careful thought about how this should be done so that

it communicates the injustice of the status quo is essential, a matter that has been

completely lost in the tar sands pipeline controversy.

I do think in addition to this, we need people to make the ethical and arguments in

publicly visible ways that people can understand them. There is considerable social

science analysis that concludes that social change happens (although often too

slowly for climate change) by people making moral arguments to their tribe that

their behavior is socially unacceptable. Social change will happen only if ethically

defensible moral arguments are made. This is likely to be insufficient by itself but

still indispensable to creating the kind of social change that we need.


SvenABjorke says:

The vested interests in keeping the fossil fuel paradigm going some more years are

so powerful, it is extremely difficult to cope with them and their lobby and propaganda

industry. They tend to confuse the public by focusing on academic uncertainty, which

will of course always be there. This is why it is crucial that respected academics now

avoid eternal academic squabbles. We must focus on the elephant in the room: the

fossil fuel society, and the extremely irresponsible and unethical policy of the world’s

decisionmakers. The fossil fuel industry is destroying the world, we, the taxpayers of

the world, actually are misled to pay them for doing it, and our leading politicians are

fully aware of it. We can no longer let them hide behind hypotethetical uncertainties.

The focus on climate change and ethics is so right.http://ufbutv.com/2013/05/20/two-or-three-degrees-more-does-it-really-matter/

and http://ufbutv.com/2013/05/03/out-of-fossil-fuels-now/


DonaldA.Brown says:

Yes, I agree completely with your comments. I also have looked at your web site,

thank you for sharing. This is good and important work you are doing.

Donald A. Brown

Scholar In Residence,

Sustainability Ethics and Law

Widener University School of Law


1 7/10/2013



Pingback/Trackback

Two or three degrees more – does it really matter? | Education for Sustainable

Development

Pingback/Trackback

To, tre grader til – er det så farlig? | Education for Sustainable Development

Pingback/Trackback

Oljealderen må avvikles nå | Education for Sustainable Development

Pingback/Trackback

Out of fossil fuels now! | Education for Sustainable Development


MichelleBaker says:

Donald – thank you for such a well-considered article on this important topic. I feel it

highlights the most significant fact about climate change – the failure of scientists to

clearly communicate its impact.

Climate change, more so than any other issue in today’s global sphere (including

Middle Eastern politics), illustrates the massive gap between subject matter experts

and laypeople at all educational levels. We need to do a much better job inside

universities, governments, and corporations training people to communicate clearly.

Thank you for continuing to outline these problems in such an articulate fashion. We

can all learn from the work you’re doing. – Michelle

Pingback/Trackback

Anton’s Weekly International Law Digest, Vol. 4, No. 2 (28 May 2013) | Anton's

Weekly International Law Digest

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Name *

Email *

LeaveaComment


11 7/10/2013



Website

Comment

SendComment

Proudly powered by WordPress. Design by wplook


On the Extraordinary Urgency of Nations Responding to Climate Change on the Basis of Equity

Documents

Transcript of On the Extraordinary Urgency of Nations Responding to Climate Change on the Basis of Equity