Are Developed Nations Looking to Outsource Their Emission Reduction Goals?
The next climate treaty is likely to include much tougher emission reduction goals for the developed countries and given the tormenting economic conditions their governments could be looking to outsource a significant percentage their emission reduction responsibilities to developing countries.
Although all the developed countries involved in negotiations for the next climate treaty agree that tougher emission reduction goals are necessary to combat global warming, they also acknowledge the fact that they are at loss of adequate resources to achieve those goals. While many plan to introduce carbon trading schemes the economic crisis means that the effectiveness of such schemes cannot be guaranteed. And thus, these countries seem to be looking for some tweaks in order to achieve those goals while avoiding any further damage to their economic growth.
The emission reduction schemes of both European Union and the United States allow a major portion of the emissions goals to be achieved by outsourcing them to developing countries. Experts fear that the real reduction in domestic emissions could be very less.
analysts say that the fine print of the complex agreement allows EU countries and companies to pay developing countries to make about 75 percent of the pledged emissions cuts from 2008-2020.
Britain had earlier been accused of weakening the EU plan to cut emissions by 20 percent by 2020.
According to documents obtained by the Guardian newspaper, the government is proposing that firms and countries attempting to meet the EU’s target to reduce emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 should be able to achieve up to half the required cuts by investing in carbon offset credits through the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).
Under current EU proposals, no more than a quarter of the target could be met using carbon credits, placing the emphasis on businesses and governments to reduce their own domestic emissions.
The proposed cap and trade scheme waiting for approval in the US Congress allows the country to outsource the entire emission reduction commitments to developing countries through investments in clean energy projects. If passed in its current form, the bill would allow United States to achieve the 14 percent emission reduction goal without any significant domestic emission cuts.
Carbon caps required under a draft U.S. climate bill, expected to pass its first legislative hurdle soon, can be met entirely with imported offsets until after 2020, analysts say. The scheme would run from 2012.
The developed countries must work to reduce their domestic carbon emissions instead of creating loopholes in their climate policies for easy bailouts. Helping developing countries with investments in clean energy projects should not be coupled with their own efforts to reduce their carbon footprint.
While it must be ensured that the investments made by industries through carbon trading are reaching the developing countries in setting up clean energy infrastructure, this practice should not be a substitute to the efforts to reduce domestic carbon emissions.
While the reluctance of world leaders to pass on the economic costs of reducing carbon emissions to the common people already battling shrinking incomes and unemployment is understandable, it does not undermine the fact that developed nations need to do much more, one, because of their historical responsibility and, second, to get developing countries to agree to emission reduction goals of their own.
The problem of securing a consistent and healthy economic growth while cutting carbon emissions could be solved by investing in national clean energy projects. Investing in upgrading in power grid to get them ready for future large scale solar and wind energy projects, strengthening the public transport systems and thus taking thousands of gas guzzling automobiles off the roads, setting up manufacturing facilities for production of low cost solar panels and wind turbines, investing in energy efficiency programs, mandating installation of rainwater harvesting systems for all new buildings and government buildings - these are few ways through which energy consumption and thus carbon emissions can be reduced while creating employment and keep the economy going.
Inaction now could result in severely adverse consequences in the future. By running from our responsibilities and by ignoring the need of swift action we will be only fooling ourselves and digging deeper holes for ourselves.
