Carmen Bunzl - Universidad Pontificia Comillas

Chapter 5. Conclusions 235
It is clear now that developing countries will have to take action. First, the
substantial majority of forecast greenhouse gas emissions in the twenty-first
century will occur in developing countries. Already, developing countries
account for about 50 per cent of energy-related carbon emissions, and their
share is expected to rise to 70 per cent by 2030. Even if the developed countries
reduce their emissions to zero, such growth in emissions in developing
countries would preclude atmospheric stabilization of greenhouse gas
concentrations in this century. Second, many developing countries are
emerging economically and surpassing some of the poorest countries with
Kyoto Protocol targets. For example, Romania, the poorest country with a
Kyoto target, has lower per capita income than more than 50 countries without
such targets.
The control of emissions in developing countries is an undeniable scientific
necessity, yet, at the same time, fighting poverty and achieving growth and
development are their utmost priorities. Development plans have to place climate
change – both mitigation and adaptation – at their core. The climate crisis calls for a
regime that can rapidly curb emissions globally, but preserving a right to
development; if this is not achieved, the necessary scale of developing country
engagement will not be engendered, and such a weak regime would not be
politically or practically feasible.
Once countries met certain graduation criteria they would be expected to
assume binding national targets but conditional to developed countries
showing that low carbon growth is possible, that financial flows to developing
countries will be substantial, and that low carbon technologies will be both available
and shared.
Several analysts have proposed rules for graduating into a system of
quantitative emissions commitments. This notion of progressivity is implicit in
the Kyoto Protocol commitments, which increase in stringency with per capita
income. The problem with such approaches to promoting participation is that
they assume there are some countries willing to take on more stringent targets
Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería ICAI Carmen Bunzl Boulet Junio 2008