Foreword

Equity & Global Climate Change: The Complex Elements of Global Fairness

Eileen Claussen, President, Pew Center on Global Climate Change

What constitutes a fair response to climate change is the main question underlying many of the unresolved issues in the climate change debate. It is behind the questions of the level of commitment by industrialized countries, the type of participation to be undertaken by developing countries, the structure of the various trading mechanisms, and the nature and magnitude of financial obligations. What has been missing from the debate, however, are consensus principles that define equity in the context of this issue.

This report, which offers insight on global equity, is the second in a series by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. The Pew Center was established in 1998 by the Pew Charitable Trusts to bring a new cooperative approach and critical scientific, economic and technological expertise to the global climate change debate.

Using the language already in the Framework Convention and the Kyoto Protocol and the way equity has been invoked in other international treaties as a backdrop, the report lays out a new paradigm. We suggest that three criteria—responsibility for the emissions that can cause climate change, standard of living (or the ability to pay for climate change mitigation), and opportunity to reduce emissions—should be considered in differentiating country obligations. Based on these criteria, the report suggests that it is appropriate to divide countries into three groups rather than two: those that must act now; those that should act now, but differently; and those that could act now if feasible. We hope that these ideas will stimulate debate and draw us toward an objective and transparent approach to this critical cause.

The Pew Center and its Business Environmental Leadership Council believe that climate change is serious business. Fairness demands that countries step up to the plate.