Carmen Bunzl - Universidad Pontificia Comillas

Chapter 3. Implications of future climate regime architectures 142
providing information on the magnitude of effort required from the different
Parties.
- Annex I regions
Having a first look at Annex I regions’ reference scenarios – which represent
their change in emissions from 1990 taking into account only the policies
already implemented (business-as-usual scenario) – emissions would increase
in all of them, specially in the rest of Annex I (RAI) region and in the USA. In
2020, Germany would have been the only one to have reduced their emissions,
together with Russia (although Russia’s decreasing emissions have nothing to
do with a gain in efficiency or clean energy). In 2050, emissions would be lower
in general; Japan (whose efficiency is already very high) and the UK, would join
Germany and Russia in the decreasing emissions group. All regions would
have decreased their emissions, except for Russia and the rest of Annex I
countries from Eastern Europe (RUS+EEU), which even though still lower than
1990 levels, emissions from 2020 to 2050 would increase. The reference scenario
is important to determine the reduction efforts of each region.
At a first quick glance, it can be observed that regional emission allowances
for the different approaches and also between regions are far more
homogeneous in 2050 (all regions would have had to reduce emissions around
90% of 1990 levels) than in 2020. This may be because all the approaches
selected for the study show some convergence in the per capita emissions
around 2050.
The Multistage approach (the global intensity target approach is not studied
here) is the most demanding for all the regions and both in 2020 and 2050;
followed by the CDC approach. These are both staged approaches in which
developing countries would not participate until they reach a certain threshold,
therefore developed countries would have to support part of their burden in
order to reach low stabilization levels. For 2020, the sectoral approach would be
even more demanding for Annex I countries as a group; nevertheless, this
Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería ICAI Carmen Bunzl Boulet Junio 2008