NEW DELHI: New Delhi's search for a model of equitable sharing of the total carbon that countries can spew into the atmosphere will begin at a conference organised by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences and the ministry of environment and forests.
The need for a model has arisen largely as there is a general agreement among countries to limit temperature rise to 2 degrees centigrade. Accepting the temperature guardrails automatically puts a limit on the amount of carbon that can be emitted.
At the centre of the two-day international conference is the TISS study, "Meeting Equity in a Finite Carbon World Global Carbon Budgets and Burden Sharing in Mitigation Actions". The study is part of the MOEF discussion paper series. Authored by T Jayaraman, Mukul Sanwal, Tejal Kantikar, Prabir Purukayastha, Mario D Souza and Rajbvans Talwar, the study calls for a division of the carbon budget, which has been pegged at 1440 giga tones, on the basis of population. This is the equal per capita principle.
Treating carbon space as equivalent to development space, the study calls on developed world, particularly the United States to take deep emission cuts.
At the same time making it clear that individual developing countries too will need to take steps to reduce emissions from the business usual path. It is also suggested that once it is clear that developing countries are on the path to securing their fair share of the carbon space, these countries will need to take on absolute emission reductions as well. A base year of 1970 has been used to determine historical responsibility.' "The per capita principle in global carbon space, including the past and the future, is a more stringent demand than the principle of equity in per capita annual emissions. Alongside other countries, India has also put the issue on the agenda of global climate negotiations in its most recent submission to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change."
Delegates from China, Brazil, South Africa, and UK will be attending the conference. Among the other proposals that will be discussed are the Global Development Rights proposal and the German Advisory Council on Global Change's study on the budget approach.
"Ensuring equity is fundamental to a global climate change agreement. For this, equity needs to be an operational, implementable concept rather than just a theoretical one," environment minister Jairam Ramesh said.
