2023-06-07 22:40:37
Industrialized countries that emit excessive levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) should pay a total of 170 billion dollars in compensation or reparations until the year 2050 to guarantee the fulfillment of the objectives of fight against climate changeaccording to an international study led by the University of Leeds and in which the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) has participated.
This money, which amounts to almost six trillion dollars a year — about 7% of global gross domestic product (GDP) annually — would be distributed as compensation to low-emission countries that are forced to decarbonise their economies much faster than would otherwise be necessary.
The financial compensation for the loss and damage suffered by the most vulnerable countries to the climate due to excessive CO2 emissions by other nations is increasingly important in international climate change negotiations. Delegates who attended last year’s talks on the COP27 in Egypt agreed to create a Loss and Damage Fund for countries affected by climate change.
Magazine Nature Sustainability a major study setting out how an evidence-based compensation system might work in nearly 170 countries. Researchers have developed a interactive web page that allows exploring which countries might be entitled to receive compensation and in what amountas well as which countries should pay them.
“This is the first system that shows that the countries historically responsible for excessive CO2 emissions have the obligation to finance compensation,” he says. Jason HickelICTA-UAB researcher and co-author of the study.
Andrew Fanning, director of the study and a researcher at the University of Leeds, explains that “to avoid the worst effects of climate change, all countries must urgently stop burn fossil fuels and to carry out those activities that emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But not all countries have contributed equally to this problem.
“If we are asking nations to quickly decarbonise their economies, even if they bear no responsibility for the excess emissions that destabilize the climate, it’s a matter of climate justice to be compensated for this unfair burden,” he adds.
Debtors and debtors of climate change
According to the study, Spain should pay a total of $1.9 trillion from now to the year 2050 for excessive CO2 emissions, which is equivalent to $1,310 per capita per year.
Spain should pay 1.9 trillion dollars between now and 2050 for its excessive CO2 emissions
United Kingdom should pay $7.7 trillion during this period or a payment of almost 3,500 euros a year until 2050, while the figures for USA would amount to 80 trillion dollars or an annual per capita payment of more than $7,200. The Indiaa country that historically emits little CO2, would be entitled to receive compensation of 57 billion dollarsor nearly $1,200 per capita per year until 2050.
Brazil, Colombia y Mexico are the Latin American countries to whom they are owed more money in absolute terms. Brazil would receive 6.3 trillion dollars, while Colombia would be owed 1.6 trillion dollars and Mexico 1.5 trillion dollars.
The US quadruples its allocation in a fair share of carbon. / ICTA-UAB
The compensation system is based on the idea that the atmosphere is a common good, a natural resource that everyone should use equitably and sustainably. To put a monetary value on the losses suffered by countries with low carbonthe researchers first obtained the most recent remaining global “carbon budgets” estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
A carbon budget represents the amount of carbon that could be released into the atmosphere to achieve a certain climate goal such as, for example, keeping global warming at 1.5ºC. Starting in the year 1960, that carbon budget is equivalent to 1.8 trillion tons of CO2.
The researchers then calculated a “fair share” of that total carbon budget for 168 countries, based on their population size. They compared the equitable share of each country with the amount of CO2 it has historically emitted since 1960, together with an ambitious scenario of decarbonization from current levels to “net zero” in 2050.
Researchers consider the atmosphere a natural resource that everyone should use equitably and sustainably
Some countries have not exceeded their quota, while others, especially the industrialized countries of the North, already they have exceeded it considerablyappropriating the part of the atmospheric commons that would correspond to other countries.
For example, the UK has used 2.5 times more of its share, and the United States more than four times. India, for its part, has used just under a quarter of its share.
Using carbon prices from the latest IPCC scenarios, the researchers assigned a monetary value to excess emissions of each country in a world scenario below 1.5 ºC. The total figure amounted to 192 billion dollars (within a range between 141 and 298 billion), of which 89% (170 billion) corresponded to the North and the rest to the countries of the South, especially oil producers, as Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.
Under this system, that money would be shared among low-carbon countries based on the part of the allowance they would lose. A group of 55 low-emission countries, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa and India, would be entitled to average compensation of $1,160 per capita per year, in a world that keeps global warming below 1.5ºC .
Clear patterns of atmospheric colonization
“Meanwhile, the countries that would appropriate a minor part of their fair shares they would also be entitled to lesser compensation. We found 13 countries that would sacrifice less than 25% in our net zero scenario, including China, which would be entitled to receive about $280 per capita per year on average,” Fanning says.
The United States has quadrupled the carbon consumption that would correspond to it in an equitable distribution
For Hickel, climate change reflects clear patterns of atmospheric colonization. “Social movements and negotiators from the global South have long argued that countries that have produced excessive emissions should be compensated or repared for the weather related damagewhich fall disproportionately on the poorest countries that have contributed little or nothing to the crisis,” says Hickel.
“Our study focuses only on the offsets that are due for atmospheric appropriation, and this needs to be considered in addition to broader questions about transition costs, adaptation, and damage,” he continues.
According to the teacher, attention should also be paid to the great class inequalities within nations. The responsibility for excess emissions falls largely on the wealthy classes, who have very high consumption and who wield disproportionate power over production and national politics. “They are the ones who must bear the compensation costs,” he concludes.
References
- Hickel, J. “Compensation for atmospheric appropriation”. Nature Sustainability.
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