Abstracts & Papers

The failure to achieve an international greenhouse gas emissions limitations agreement that includes all major emitting jurisdictions has stimulated proposals for a variety of different specific initiatives to promote global climate protection. Missing, however, is an encompassing analysis of the incentives which might influence various actors (different states, business and financial firms, cities and other subnational jurisdictions, consumers, NGOs) and which identifies a coordinated set of strategies to mobilize these diverse, often decentralized incentives in order to promote global climate sustainability. This paper offers a preliminary version of such an analysis. It examines potential lessons offered by the successful evolution of selected multilateral environmental regimes (e.g., Antarctica, oil pollution, regional air pollution, marine pollution from ships) in order to identify strategies for cooperation (e.g., trade agreements, financing arrangements, information-base approaches) that could work together to promote bottom up development of a global climate regime.[Paper]

Examining China’s GHG Mitigation Actions as part of a Global Framework

The paper (or just a presentation) will introduce the recent developed GHGs emission scenarios conducted by international energy research institutes of China’s role in future global projection. Responding to current background of UNFCCC process, how do the national mitigation actions being carried out within international cooperation framework? In order to justify the effectiveness of mitigation actions, MRV is crucial. We will identify the access and accuracy of Chinese data system and its gap between the situation and desired goal. I also would like to analyze the major motive of Chinese economic development and its result, which effect China’s emission result a great deal. 

[Paper]

In the period 2005-2010 Brazil has dramatically reduced carbon emissions around 25% and at the same time has kept a stable economic growth rate of 3.5% annually. This combination of economic growth and emissions reduction is unique in the world. The driver was a dramatic reduction in deforestation in the Amazonian forest and the Cerrado Savannah.  This shift empowered the sustainability social forces in Brazil to the point that Congress passed (December 2009) a very progressive law internalizing carbon constrains and promoting the transition to a low carbon economy. Brazil is now the only non-OECD country to have such kind of legal framework.

The paper will discuss the recent dynamic of carbon politics in Brazil and future prospective, among them the dilemmas related to the battles in the energy arena: four low carbon complex (hydro, biofuel, nuclear and wind) and one high carbon complex (oil and gas).

Finally the paper will compare the recent Brazilian emissions trajectory with the equivalent from other climate powers - USA, EU, China, India, Russia, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico and South Korea – and will reflect about the potentialities of Brazil becoming a kind of reference for some of them.

[Paper]

Trade and Carbon Taxes:

If only one country or region imposes a carbon price and others do not, production may shift to non-taxing regions with the result that emissions in non-pricing regions may increase. The possibility of this carbon leakage is one of the major hurdles to adoption of strict carbon policies by developed countries. The paper examines how carbon leakage relates to the particular type of carbon-pricing system and examines policies such as border taxes that might be used to reduce leakage. To estimate the possible size of the effect, the paper presents results from a new computable general equilibrium model. It also critically examines the uncertainty present in results from models of this sort by examining the sensitivity of the results to the central parameters and by replicating the parameter choices of other models of carbon leakage within the CGE model used here. Finally, the paper discusses how model and parameter uncertainty should affect policy evaluation.

[Paper]

One of the fundamental premises of the climate regime - the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), 1992, and its Kyoto Protocol, 1997 – is that leadership from developed countries, and its corollary differential treatment in favor of developing countries, is the equitable and therefore appropriate basis on which the international response to climate change must be structured. Elements of prescription (for developed countries), leadership (of developed countries and differentiation (in favor of developing countries) are  evident in the tone, intent and design of the FCCC and the Kyoto Protocol. The nature and extent of differential treatment in the climate regime, however, has remained contentious through the years. While there is a shared understanding among states that a global climate regime is necessary, and that they have ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ in addressing climate change, there is little agreement on the principles and formulae for differentiating between states in doing so. The Copenhagen Accord, 2009, and the Cancun Agreements, 2010, offer a distinctive vision of differential treatment. Through these instruments the international community appears to be moving from differential treatment for developing countries towards differentiation for all countries, as well as

towards increasing parallelism between developed and developing countries. This paper explores the nature of differential treatment, as it is evolving, in the emerging climate regime, and the impact this is likely to have on the design, ambition, reach and rigor of the emerging climate regime.[Paper]

Deadlock has come to characterise much of the multi-lateral climate negotiation process. Whether on large substantive matters of NAI emission reduction commitments, or more discrete procedural considerations of legal form, post-Bali COPs have disappointed in terms of international cooperation. Notwithstanding occasional instances of progress, the dominant trajectory of the negotiations has failed to meet the demands of agreed physical science.

But what is the ethical valency of this impasse? This paper will explore the argument that non-agreement is an ethically plausible response to the state of the current negotiations. Notwithstanding the urgency of the problem, missteps at this stage in the form of further "shadow solutions" (Gardiner's term) may pose a greater threat to intergenerational equity than inaction.

[Paper]

In this paper we attempt to narrow the gap between developed and developing countries’ perceptions of justice in the climate change context. We show that, in spite of its intuitive appeal, the equal per-capita argument is not grounded in any general moral principle and therefore cannot provide an answer to the question of what would be fair allocation of emission rights. We argue that the underlying moral theory is global distributive justice theory which unfortunately can only be of very limited help. We briefly discuss the various particular principles/considerations that are offered in the literature in support, or in criticism, of the equal per capita allocation and find that in close analysis they generally support the developing countries’ view. We conclude by making a practical suggestion.
[Paper]

At the moment there are 25 million environmental refugees in the world, and according to experts, due to climate change there will be 50 million refugees by 2030. Environmental justice theorists and political bodies have been suggesting that therefore an international compensation mechanism should be thought of. Most questions raised with regard to this process have been about who should compensate and how. However, I want to raise questions about whether what we do in such cases is compensation or something else, and whether, if we cannot compensate, should we aim at something else?
[Paper]

Climate change is a realm shaped by and determinant of vast social, economic and political inequalities. Environmental justice, a discipline traditionally concerned with uneven distribution of environmental harms, is now increasingly preoccupied with the uneven distribution of responsibility for these harms in the first place.

Attempts since the 1990s to better understand climate change and to mitigate it  are anchored in an international setting. The UNFCCC, its subsidiary bodies, the conference of its Parties (COP), the working groups convened between them and the scientific advisory bodies supporting them view states and their relationships as chief actors.  Not surprisingly, data on GHG emissions is collected, organized, reported and compared with countries serving as the primary units of analysis. This paper, citing new data on CO2 emissions by income decile in Israel, suggests that the politically motivated tendency to overlook in-country disparities in terms of GHG emissions is a formidable obstacle on the path to an effective  climate pact. Understanding these disparities and the political economy that drives them and maintains them is essential if a global agreement on climate is to be attained.

[Paper]

Fostering international environmental cooperation requires understanding the influences of national policies on environmental performance and addressing them. The current paper focuses on one potential influence: Is social policy connected with national environmental performance? Drawing on multiple disciplines the paper offers a theoretical model for explaining the connection between social policy and environmental performance with a particular focus on GHG emissions performance. The paper also presents theoretical reasoning for potential differences in the effects of social policy on environmental performance depending on relevant categorization of environmental performance (Human related performance; ecological performance and global environmental performance).
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