Reparations for global climate justice?
In this new paper we quantify the compensation that over-emitting countries may owe to the rest of the world for the appropriation of atmospheric commons. Out today in Nature Sustainability, with the brilliant @AndrewLFanning. 🧵
In this new paper we quantify the compensation that over-emitting countries may owe to the rest of the world for the appropriation of atmospheric commons. Out today in Nature Sustainability, with the brilliant @AndrewLFanning. 🧵
First, we assessed nations' emissions against their fair-shares of the global carbon budget for 1.5C, from a 1960 baseline.
Result: most global South countries are well within fair-shares. But the global North as a group has already exceeded its fair-share 2.5x over.
Result: most global South countries are well within fair-shares. But the global North as a group has already exceeded its fair-share 2.5x over.
Andrew built an online tool that allows users to see the country-level data. Here is China and the USA, for example. goodlife.leeds.ac.uk
I want to pause to emphasize what this data reveals. Not only have GN countries overshot their fair-share of the safe planetary boundary... but the 1.5C and 2C budgets too. By a *long* way. And the consequences fall hardest on the global South. The injustice is staggering.
Now, in a scenario where *all countries* reduce emissions to zero by 2050, the global North will overshoot its 1.5C fair share by 3x, and appropriate half the South's fair share in the process... forcing the latter to mitigate more rapidly than would otherwise be required.
Using carbon prices from IPCC scenarios that limit warming to 1.5C, we calculate that over-emitting countries would owe a total of $192 trillion to the rest of the world by 2050 to compensate for this appropriation. Most is owed by the US, UK and EU.
Users can explore country-level data too: which countries are liable to pay and which are entitled to receive? How much? For many global South countries, the annual per capita receipts would be transformative.
Here is the full paper, which is open-access. nature.com
Note: our study focuses only on compensation that is owed for atmospheric appropriation, and this should be considered additional to broader questions about the costs of transition, adaptation and damages.
Also: we must pay attention to class inequalities too. Responsibility for excess emissions is largely held by the wealthy classes who wield disproportionate power over production/consumption and national policy. They are the ones who must bear the costs of compensation.
I want to draw everyone's attention here to the People's Agreement of Cochabamba, signed by social movements across the global South, which establishes these core principles. pwccc.wordpress.com
Justice-based compensation along these lines would accomplish something very simple: it would increase the purchasing power of communities in the South over the global product (which they overwhelmingly produce!), while reducing the power of the rich over the world economy.
And... a nice thread from Andrew with better graphics!
Climate breakdown is being driven by our system of production, capitalism, organized around the interests of large firms and the ruling classes of the core. The obligation of reparations must be imposed on capital... as a process of transferring power from capital to the people.
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