The 21st Century climate challenge

1The 21 st Century climate challengeFigure 1.8Biomassdependencecontinues inmany countriesTraditional fuel consumption(% of total energy requirements) live in sub-Saharan Africa, 58 where only aroundone-quarter of people use modern energyservices, and South Asia.The vast global deficit in access to basicenergy services has to be considered alongsideconcerns over the rise in CO 2emissions fromdeveloping countries. Emissions of CO 2fromIndia may have become a matter of globalconcern for climate security. That perspectiveis very partial. The number of people in Indialiving without access to modern electricityis around 500 million—more than the totalpopulation of the enlarged European Union.These are people who live without so much as alight bulb in their homes and rely on firewoodor animal dung for cooking. 59 While access toenergy is increasing across the developing world,progress remains slow and uneven, holding backadvances in poverty reduction. Worldwide, therewill still be 1.4 billion people without access tomodern energy services in 2030 if current trendscontinue (box 1.2). 60 Currently some 2.5 billionpeople depend on biomass (figure 1.8).Changing this picture is vital for humandevelopment. The challenge is to expandaccess to basic energy services while limitingincreases in the depth of the developingworld’s per capita carbon footprint. Enhancedefficiency in energy use and the development oflow-carbon technologies hold the keys, as weshow in chapter 3.There are overwhelming practical andequitable grounds for an approach thatreflects past responsibility and currentcapabilities. Mitigation responsibilitiesand capabilities cannot be derived from thearithmetic of carbon footprinting. Even so,that arithmetic does provide some obviousinsights. For example, if everything else wereequal, a cut of 50 percent in CO 2emissionsfor South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa wouldreduce global emissions by 4 percent. Similarreductions in high-income countries wouldreduce emissions by 20 percent. The equityarguments are equally compelling. An averageair-conditioning unit in Florida emits moreCO 2in a year than a person in Afghanistanor Cambodia during their lifetime. Andan average dishwasher in Europe emits asmuch CO 2in a year as three Ethiopians.While climate change mitigation is a globalchallenge, the starting place for mitigationis with the countries that carry the bulk ofhistoric responsibility and the people thatleave the deepest footprints.BangladeshAfghanistanZambia1.4 Avoiding dangerous climate change—a sustainableemissions pathwayMozambiqueNigerTanzania, (United Republic of)Ethiopia0 25 50 75 100Source: Calculated on the basis of data ontraditional fuel consumption and totalenergy requirement from UN 2007c.Climate change is a global problem thatdemands an international solution. The startingpoint must be an international agreement onthe limitation of greenhouse gas emissions.Strategies for limitation have to be developedat a national level. What is required at theinternational level is a framework that setslimits on overall emissions. That frameworkhas to chart an emissions pathway consistentwith the objective of avoiding dangerousclimate change.In this section we set out such a pathway.We start by identifying a global carbon budgetfor the 21 st Century. The concept of a carbonbudget is not new. It was developed by the architectsof the Kyoto Protocol and has been taken44 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2007/2008