Reaching the 2°C target by fair means

New study “Global yet fair” on climate change and justice

A new study jointly financed by the Munich Re Foundation and Misereor has been unveiled in Berlin. According to the study, global warming can be curbed. What is needed to do so is investment in renewable energies and protecting the rights of people in developing countries.

The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), the Institute for Social and Development Studies at the Munich School of Philosophy (IGP), Catholic relief agency Misereor and the Munich Re Foundation published a new study on the link between climate change and global poverty on 16 September. Praise for the study came from Sigmar Gabriel, SPD Chairman and former German Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, and Prof. Hans-Werner Sinn (President of the ifo Institute for Economic Research in Munich).

The report “Global yet fair” has come just at the right time given the slow progress of negotiations at the world climate summits and at September’s UN conference on achieving the millennium development goals. “Global yet fair” adopts an interdisciplinary approach, examining the issue from a range of economic, ecological and development policy perspectives. It shows climate change can be curbed in a way that is equitable and involves those countries primarily concerned.

A host of recommendations

The study contains a host of recommendations and addresses many current challenges. Ethicists at the IGP highlight the different aspects of justice involved. For example, one central requirement is to preserve people’s fundamental right to meet their basic needs and equality of opportunity and to recognise inter-generational equity as a basis for action (sustainability). The ongoing world climate negotiations can only succeed if all countries have an equal say in matters and some form of compensation is worked out between the principal causers of climate change and those who bear the brunt of its consequences. At the climate summit in Copenhagen a small group of 25 countries tried to draft a follow-up agreement to the Kyoto Protocol. This cannot lead to a binding agreement.
In this connection, Sigmar Gabriel drew comparisons with the successful security policies of recent years and decades. It was only negotiations involving all countries that made this possible.

More than one way to achieve the 2°C target

The study shows that there are many ways to achieve the 2°C target stipulated by the IPCC. The experts in Berlin agreed that solutions for our remaining fossil fuels need to be found. Hans-Werner Sinn and Sigmar Gabriel believe that these resources will continue to be used despite the ongoing climate debates. However, that will make it difficult not to overburden the “storage space” in the atmosphere (750 gigatonnes of CO2) for greenhouse gases. Only global emissions trading can ensure that emission-reduction targets can be met. Poor countries could even profit from such a system. With the same emissions rights for all, they could profitably sell their unwanted emissions rights to industrialised countries. Ottmar Edenhofer, chief economist at PIK and chairman of the IPCC’s Working Group III (Mitigation) is in favour of better research into technological solutions such as  carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). Even if the chances of this technology succeeding in central Europe are considered to be fairly low, it will be difficult to achieve the 2°C target without it. In combination with bioenergy it may even be possible to achieve “negative emissions”: reductions that are urgently needed in this growing global economy. Though Sinn and Gabriel were sceptical about this point, everyone agrees that the key to fighting climate changes lies in renewable energies. The results of scientific studies show that the costs of climate change avoidance are highest if renewable energies are not sufficiently promoted.

Political solutions will only be possible if the process used to find them is fair and equitable and if the war on climate change is more closely linked with the war on poverty. 

Background

The study has been published in book form by the C. H. Beck publishing house (ISBN 978-3-409-60656-4). The book is available in book shops and can be ordered from the Munich Re Foundation.