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Climate talks: The wrangle over emissions yardsticks

by Staff Writers
Paris (AFP) Sept 22, 2009
Competing ways of calculating a country's carbon burden are looming as a sticking point ahead of a UN conference in Copenhagen in December tasked with crafting a landmark deal on climate change.

Rich countries and developing giants favour different yardsticks for judging efforts to curb the "greenhouse" gases that are blamed for disrupting the climate system and driving up sea levels.

These different methodologies may seem arcane. But reconciling them could hold the key to the December 7-18 parlay under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

There are essentially three ways of presenting a country's carbon output.

-- VOLUME OF EMISSIONS:

This is the simplest measure, relating to the total amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other heat-trapping gases emitted by an economy.

Rich countries generally favour setting targets on this basis. Tackling the overall volume of emissions meets scientific criteria for dealing with greenhouse gases and also makes it simpler to reach a deal, they say.

China and the United States are the world's top two carbon polluters, each accounting for about 20 percent of global emissions. The European Union's 27 nations contribute another 14 percent, according to the US Department of Energy Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC).

Poorer countries counter that this measure fails to take into account the historical responsibility of rich nations whose carbon-driven growth began more than a century ago.

It also, they say, ignores the distribution of emissions across an entire population.

-- PER CAPITA EMISSIONS:

This means taking the volume of emissions and dividing it by the country's population.

On a per capita basis, the emitters' list is headed by United States, with around 20 tonnes of CO2 per head per year, closely followed by Australia and Canada, says CDIAC.

EU residents only produce half as much per head. China and India emit less than five tonnes and about one-and-a-half tonnes respectively.

The large developing countries, led by India, argue that such figures exemplify the need for "climate justice."

Poorer nations should have the chance to use cheap, versatile and plentiful fossil fuels to haul themselves out of poverty, which means their per-capita levels should not be constrained for now, they argue.

Critics see the moral point behind per-capita measurement, but also worry it could be exploited to wreck a climate treaty.

Even if China, India and other giants peg their per-capita emissions at just half of rich countries' current levels, dangerous amounts of CO2 will be spewed into the atmosphere, simply because their populations are so big.

Climate experts have said that by 2050, when the world's population is expected to reach nine billion, the average global output of CO2 must not exceed two tonnes per capita to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

-- CARBON INTENSITY

This is the most complex measure, entailing the amount of greenhouse gas emitted per unit of gross domestic product (GDP).

By vowing to reduce carbon intensity -- as Chinese President Hu Jintao did at the UN in New York on Tuesday -- a country is essentially promising to make smarter use of fossil fuels or switch to cleaner energies.

Some countries already have relatively low carbon intensities. They are led especially by Japan, followed by France, Britain, Germany and the United States. The United States does well on this score, although it is still a huge volume emitter because of the size of its economy.

Russia is the most profligate, emitting 10 times more carbon fuel for the same production output than its most efficient European neighbors.

Critics of the carbon intensity measure say that energy efficiency is useful but does not necessarily entail a cut in emissions.

Even if it uses fossils more effectively, a rapidly-growing economy -- such as China's, growing by double digits -- can still emit more greenhouse gases in absolute terms, they say.

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