Carmen Bunzl - Universidad Pontificia Comillas

Chapter 2. Options for future climate change architectures 120
Figure 2 - 2. Capacity Capacity/Development Need chart for India, China and the United States, with
$9,000 per capita (PPP) development threshold.
A country’s responsibility is calculated as cumulative emissions excluding
emissions corresponding to consumption below the development threshold –
arising from meeting basic needs. Combined in a straightforward way these
can be used as the basis for burden-sharing, yielding the “Responsibility-
Capacity Indicator” or RCI. This would result in more than one-third of the
total global obligation for the US, somewhat more than a quarter for the EU-27,
less than 3% for China, and a negligible 0.1% for India.
These calculations of national obligation explicitly account for the wealth and
poverty in each country. They reflect a presence of a sub-population in
developing countries that is part of the global consuming class and that has
development obligations – domestic human development investment seeking to
reduce inequality – directly proportional to their mitigation exemption. A
concession to a certain kind of realism is made: it is plain that rich countries will
not fund their mitigation obligations if they feel that rich people in poor
countries are free riding on the mitigation regime.
It is critical in evaluating GDRs to know that it is a “reference framework.” It
would be naïve to think that it would be operationalized anytime soon; not, at
least, as a package. GDRs is not intended to be a “realist” proposal, not as
realism is understood today; nevertheless a wide range of plausible
mechanisms is compatible with the core GDRs architecture.
Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería ICAI Carmen Bunzl Boulet Junio 2008