Study On The Responsibility Of Reducing CO₂Emission

Global climate change not only does great harm to the fragile ecological environment in the ocean and coastal zone, but also directly threatens to human’s survival and development. International community finally realized that countries should try to reduce greenhouse gas emission, adopting a global warming limit of2℃or below (relative to pre-industrial levels). However, different countries have different economic developing levels and are of different influences by climate change. What is more, the economic foundation and motivation of developing low-carbon economy are different, which makes it hard to reach the consensus of opinion among developed countries and developing countries on responsibility of reducing CO2emission. This study aims to build up the model of distributing the responsibility of reducing CO2emission, taking into account the interests developed and developing countries, together with the efficiency principle of developed countries and egalitarian principle of developing countries, providing a scientific and feasible basic for negotiations of international CO2emission reduction. The research results of this paper are as follows.1) This paper is based on the analysis of various moral and ethical issues, as well as different national interests in international climate change negotiations, putting forward to follow the theory of equal rights based on efficiency in CO2emission responsibility allocation. This theory embodies the moral and ethical principle of different countries, which can be compatible to the interests of developed and developing countries, and also considering the challenge of economic growth and poverty reduction, which improving the efficiency of utilization of CO2capacity.2) This paper is based on the above theory, building up the model of distributing the responsibility of reducing CO2emission together with egalitarian principle and efficiency principle. This model is based on the equality of rights, including absolute equality of basic rights (everyone enjoys the equal basic emission), as well as the equal proportion of non-basic rights (non-basic CO2emission is of equal proportion related to the contribution to the world economy). Because of the distribution of non-basic CO2emission is of equal proportion related to the contribution to the economy, this model embodies the principle of efficiency.3) This paper deals with the data of TOP20CO2emission countries based on the model and estimates the max total possible emission from2005to2050. Mostly, developed countries need to reduce emission year by year; Developing countries’ emission presents a downward trend after rising first, the peak is in2020; A small number of developing countries, such as Brazil, India, Indonesia, etc., they don’t need to reduce emission due to their current emission is smaller than basic emission. This result has almost the same appeal comparing to the developing and developed countries.4) This paper estimates the distribution of responsibility of reducing CO2emission among TOP20CO2emission countries from2005to2050. The reduction of annual CO2emission of developing countries, such as China, presents an upward trend after declining first; Future reduction of annual CO2emission of developed countries, such as the USA, shows the increasing trend year by year, but the radian becomes smaller. Ultimately, the CO2emission per capita will be relatively close in both developed and developing countries. This result, on one side, gives developing countries more opportunities in development, meeting the development rights of developing countries. Developing countries have also been given responsibility at the same time, which on the one hand considering the reality of the developing countries’ increasing CO2emission share of global emission. On the other side, it also considers both appeals of the developed and developing countries’ participation in emission reduction. There is no way to achieve an international reduce emission treaty without the participation of both developed and developing countries.