Abstract
During the negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol, Brazil proposed allocating the greenhouse gas emission reductions of Annex I Parties according to the relative effect of a country’s historical emissions on global temperature increase. This paper analyses the impact of scientific uncertainties and of different options in policy implementation (policy choices) on the contribution of countries’ historical emissions to indicators of historical responsibility for climate change. The influence of policy choices was found to be at least as large as the impact of the scientific uncertainties analysed here. Building on this, the paper then proceeds to explore the implications of applying the Brazilian Proposal as a climate regime for differentiation of future commitments on the global scale combined with an income threshold for participation of the non-Annex I regions. Under stringent climate targets, such a regime leads to high emission reductions for Annex I regions by 2050, in particular for Europe and Japan. The income threshold assumptions strongly affect the Annex I reductions, even more than the impact of another burden-sharing key. A variant of the Brazilian Proposal, allocating emission reductions on the basis of cumulative emissions since 1990, would lead to a more balanced distribution of emission reductions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Andranova, N. and Schlesinger, M. E.: 2004, ‘Importance of sulfate aerosol in evaluating the relative contributions of regional emissions to the historical global temperature change’, Mitigation Adaptation Strat. Global Change (forthcoming).
Berk, M. M. and den Elzen, M. G. J.: 2001, ‘Options for differentiation of future commitments in climate policy: How to realise timely participation to meet stringent climate goals?’ Clim. Policy 1(4), 465–480.
Blanchard, O.: 2002, ‘Scenarios for Differentiating Commitments’, in Perkaus, J. F. (ed.), Options for Protecting the Climate. WRI, Washington.
Cubasch, U., Meehl, G. A., Boer, G. J., Stouffer, R. J., Dix, M., Noda, A., Senior, C. A., Raper, S., and Yap, K. S.: 2001. ‘Projections of future climate change’, in Houghton, J. T., Ding, Y., Griggs, D. J., Noguer, M., van der Linden, P. J., Dai, X., Maskell, K. and Johnson, C. A. (eds.), Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K., p. 892.
den Elzen, M. G. J.: 2002, ‘Exploring climate regimes for differentiation of future commitments to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations’, Int. Assess. 3(4), 343–359.
den Elzen, M. G. J., Berk, M. M., Schaeffer, M., Olivier, O. J., Hendriks, C., and Metz, B.: 1999, ‘The Brazilian proposal and other options for international burden sharing: An evaluation of methodological and policy aspects using the FAIR model’, RIVM-report 728001011, Bilthoven, The Netherlands. (http://www.rivm.nl/ieweb).
den Elzen, M. G. J. and Lucas, P.: 2003, ‘FAIR 2.0: A decision-support model to assess the environmental and economic consequences of future climate regimes’, RIVM-report 550015001, Bilthoven, The Netherlands. http://www.rivm.nl/fair.
den Elzen, M. G. J. and Schaeffer, M.: 2002, ‘Responsibility for past and future global warming: Uncertainties in attributing anthropogenic climate change’, Clim. Change 54, 29– 73.
den Elzen, M. G. J., Schaeffer, M., and Eickhout, B.: 2002, ‘Responsibility for past and future global warming: Time horizon and non-linearities in the climate system’, RIVM-report 728001022, Bilthoven.
Eickhout, B., den Elzen, M. G. J., and van Vuuren, D. P.: 2003, ‘Multi-gas emission profiles for stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations’, RIVM-report 728001026, Bilthoven, The Netherlands.
Enting, I. G.: 1998, ‘Attribution of greenhouse gas emission, concentrations and radiative forcing’, CSIRO Atmospheric Research Technical Paper No. 38, Aspendale Victoria, Australia.
Enting, I. G. and Law, R. M.: 2002, ‘Characterising historical responsbility for the greenhouse effect’, CSIRO Atmospheric Research Technical Paper No. 41, CSIRO, Aspendale Victoria, Australia.
Filho, M. L. G. and Miguez, M.: 1998, ‘Time dependent relationship between emissions of greenhouse gases and climate change’, Ministry of Science and Technology, Brasilia, Brazil.
Höhne, N. and Blok, K.: 2004, ‘Calculating historical contributions to climate change discussing the Brazilian proposal’, Clim. Change (forthcoming).
Höhne, N. and Harnisch, J.: 2002, ‘Evaluating indicators for the relative responsibility for climate change – alternatives to the Brazilian proposal and global warning potentials’, in Ham, V., Baede, F., Guicherit, R., and Williams-Jacobse (eds.), Non-CO2 Greenhouse Gases, Proceedings of the Third International Symposium on (NCGG-3) Maastricht, Milpress, Rotterdam.
IMAGE-team: 2001, ‘The IMAGE 2.2 implementation of the SRES scenarios: A comprehensive analysis of emissions’, Climate Change and Impacts in the 21st Century, CD-ROM publication 481508018, Bilthoven, The Netherlands.
Joos, F., Bruno, M., Fink, R., Siegenthaler, U., Stocker, T. F., Quéré, C. L., and Sarmiento, J. L.: 1996, ‘An efficient and accurate representation of complex oceanic and biospheric models of anthropogenic carbon uptake’, Tellus 48B, 397–417.
Joos, F., Plattner, G.-K., Stocker, T. F., Marchal, O., and Schmittner, A.: 1999, ‘Global warming and marine carbon cycle feedbacks on future atmospheric CO2’, Science 284, 464– 467.
Kim, Y.-G. and Baumert, K. A.: 2002, ‘Reducing uncertainty through dual-intensity targets’, in Baumert, K. A., Blanchard, O., Llose, S., and Perkaus, J. F. (eds.), Building on the Kyoto Protocol: Options for Protecting the Climate. World Resource Institue, Washington DC.
Nakicenovic, N. et al.: 2000, ‘Special Report on Emissions Scenarios’, IPCC Special Reports, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.
Prentice, I. C., Farquhar, G., Fasham, M. J. R., Goulden, M. L., Heimann, M., Jaramillo, V. J., Kheshgi, H. S., Le Quere, C., Scholes, R. J., and Wallace, D. W. R.: 2001, ‘The carbon cycle and atmospheric carbon dioxide’, in Houghton, J. T., Ding, Y., Griggs, D. J., Noguer, M., van der Linden, P. J., Dai, X., Maskell, K. and Johnson, C. A. (eds.), Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K., pp. 892.
Ramaswamy, V., Boucher, O., Haigh, J., Hauglusataine, D., Haywood, J., Myhre, G., Nakajima, T., Shi, G. Y., and Solomon, S.: 2001, ‘Atmospheric chemistry and greenhouse gases’, in Houghton, J. T., Ding, Y., Griggs, D. J., Noguer, M., van der Linden, P. J., Dai, X., Maskell, K. and Johnson, C. A. (eds.), IPCC Third Assessment – Climate Change 2001, The Scientific Basis, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.
Ringius, L., Torvanger, A., and Underdal, A.: 2002, ‘Burden sharing in international climate policy: Principles of fairness in theory and practice’, Int. Environ. Agreements Politics, Law Econ. 2, 1–22.
Rosa, L. P., Muylaert, M. S., and Campos, C. P. D.: 2003, ‘The Brazilian Proposal and its scientific and methodological aspects International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD)’, (http://www.iisd.org).
Rovere, E. L., Ribeiro, S. K., and Baumert, K. A.: 2002, ’The Brazilian Proposal on relative responsibility for global warming’ in: Baumert, K. A., Blanchard, O., Llose, S., and Perkaus, J. F. (eds.), Options for protecting the climate. World Resource Institute (WRI), Washington.
Trudinger, C. M. and Enting, I. G.: 2004, ‘Comparison of formalisms for attributing responsibility for climate change: Non-linearities in the Brazilian Proposal’, Clim. Change (forthcoming).
UNFCCC: 1997, ‘Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’, FCCC/CP/L7/Add.1, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Bonn, Germany.
UNFCCC: 1999, ‘Report on the expert meeting on the Brazilian proposal: Scientific aspects and data availability” (http://unfccc.int/sessions/workshop/010528/mrep1999.pdf).
UNFCCC: 2001, ‘Scientific and methodological aspects of the proposal by Brazil, Progress report on the review of the scientific and methodological aspects of the proposal by Brazil’, FCCC/SBSTA/2001/INF.2 (http://www.unfccc.int).
UNFCCC: 2002a, ‘Assessment of contributions to climate change, terms of reference’ (http://unfccc.int/program/mis/brazil/index.html).
UNFCCC: 2002b, ‘Methodological issues, scientific and methodological aspects of the proposal by Brazil’, Draft conclusions proposed by the chair, FCCC/SBSTA/2002/L.24 (http://www.unfccc.int).
UNFCCC: 2002c, ‘Methodologial issues, scientific and methodological assessment of contributions to climate change’, Report of the expert meeting, Note by the secretariat, FCCC/SBSTA/2002/INF.14 (http://www.unfccc.int).
Van Aardenne, J. A., Dentener, F. J., Olivier, J. G. J., Klein Goldewijk, C. G. M., and Lelieveld, J.: 2001, ‘A 1 × 1 degree resoultion dataset of historical anthropogenic trace gas emissions for the period 1890–1990’, Global Biogeochem.l Cycles 15(4), 909–928.
WBGU: 2003, ‘Climate Protection Strategies for the 21st Century – Kyoto and Beyond’, German Advisory Council on Global Change, Berlin.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Den Elzen, M.G.J., Schaeffer, M. & Lucas, P.L. Differentiating Future Commitments on the Basis of Countries’ Relative Historical Responsibility for Climate Change: Uncertainties in the ‘Brazilian Proposal’ in the Context of a Policy Implementation. Climatic Change 71, 277–301 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-005-5382-9
Received:
Revised:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-005-5382-9