The relative date of an emission (past, present, or future) has nothing to do with it being beneficial or not. Perhaps beneficial emissions should not be charged against the emitting nation's account regardless of when it occurred.
On Dec 15, 3:44 pm, "[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote: > I'd like to put these up for discussion in two contexts: > > 1. The "guilt" question - How solid is the case for "climate debt" for > past emissions? Should this debt be repaid to innocent developing > countries suffering from "our" past and present emissions sins? > > 2. Clean technology development financing > > It is often argued that developing countries will suffer most and have > contributed little to past emissions. We have benefited from past > emissions, they will suffer, so we should reimburse them. > > This is quite a sensible argument. However, I think the positive > externalities are all too easily forgotten. If Europe and the US had > never burnt any coal, there would be less CO2 in the atmosphere, but > there would also be no vaccines, no mobile phones, no photovoltaics, > no modern wind turbines, no batteries. > > The availability of these technologies is, has been and will continue > to be a huge boon to the development of poorer nations, all of which > have higher living standards today than a 100 years ago. > > I would argue that huge transfers to developing countries are the > right thing to do, because so much more good can be done there than in > Europe or the US; not because of a need to atone for past sins. > > --------------------------- > > Technology development can lead to huge external benefits. Sometimes, > via patents or through first mover advantages, the developer can be > fairly rewarded with the right incentives provided. > > But, when it's hard to capture a reasonable share of the benefits, > private investors will not cough up any cash. > > That's of course the reason for feed-in tariffs of 40 cents per kWh > for PV. It's also why no private investor will sink money into CO2 > mineralisation technology. Or why it's so hard to get private money > for fighting malaria or improving African crop yields. > > Now I like the CDM as conceived. It can be much cheaper to reduce > emissions in developing countries, and why not do that for 1 Euro per > tonne, and then not reduce in developed countries for 10 Euros per > tonne. It's development aid combined with cost reduction. In theory at > least. > > I am wondering whether we should in a similar manner reward clean > technology development spending. Already with CDM there are questions > about additionality (would the country do it anyway? or worse would it > otherwise have speeded up regulatory action?) and measurement against > base line. > > Of necessity, this is even harder for technology spending. Say, if > Germany or Spain choose to spend 10 billion Euros on feed-in tariffs, > how much is that going to reduce emissions over the long term in the > rest of the world? > > I would propose to deal with this through a cost cap. Beyond a certain > level, say 25 Euros per tonne (reviewed every year), governments can > sell unlimited emissions allowances and use the proceeds for clean > technology funding. Alternatively, if there are no emissions allowance > markets and just hard caps for individual countries, the country could > be allowed to meet some of its target by counting clean development > spending at 25 Euros per tonne. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange
