Ecologically requisite Kyōtō targets and plans – a summary

These were the “annexes” required for ecological parity at the Earth’s first global warming protocol at Kyōtō in 1996. Note absence of correlation between requisite emissions reductions and membership in Annex 1

In my previous two posts (here and here) I demonstrated that ecological parity at Kyōtō required emissions reductions from a bloc of nations almost completely exclusive – with the paramount exception of Australia – of those “Annex 1” nations committed to emissions limitations by the actual Protocol.This post will basically tabulate each bloc shown on the above map, and then look at means by which this ecologically just plan could have been carried out – the key prerequisite being greater participation and unity amongst nations with below-parity per capita emissions.

Bloc	Nations	Requisite Kyōtō emissions reduction by 2010	Key issues	Policy measures required
“Annex AAA”	Australia	90 percent to 95 percent	Extremely high per capita emissions combined with low-energy ecology Essential source of fossil fuels for industrial emissions in rest of world High solar energy potential via extremely high sunshine Limited potential for other renewable energy – no reliable hydropower and only a few tidal or geothermal sources Complete political control by corporations with vested interest in unlimited emissions (Hamilton, 2006) Low taxes creates inability to pay high overheads for renewable energy and high-speed public transit	Extreme emissions reductions required to match ecology Resource elites gain tremendous political power from unlimited emissions, and dictate rigid greenhouse-sceptic policies Absence of compromise by rest of world essential Only potential compromise removing coal subsidies to mollify key wealthy oil producers whose absence doomed actual Protocol Australian fossil fuel subsidies per capita more than seven times those of the US (Whitley, 2013, p. 9) Elimination of fossil fuel subsidies a critical part of Kyōtō’s failure (Asmelash, 2016) Large-scale pre-emptive revegetation in Australia necessary because much farmland threatened by elimination of former winter rainfall
	New Caledonia
	Gulf Cooperation Council
	North African OPEC
“Annex AA”	Non-Arab OPEC (excluding low-emissions Nigeria)	30 percent to 90 percent	Most “Annex AA” possessed strong opportunities to meet reductions by eliminating and reversing land clearing Significant source of fossil fuels for emissions in Enriched World	Land clearing needed to be counted, but strict demands for its cessation (plus in many areas revegetation) critical Demand for immediate elimination of all fossil fuel subsidies in 1996 could have significantly reduced emissions (Asmelash, 2016; Koplow, 2014)
“Annex A”	Southern Africa	30 percent to 50 percent	Mineral exporters with high per capita emissions (in PNG due solely to land clearing) Eliminating land clearing gives major opportunities to reduce emissions Very high biodiversity value due to ancient rainforest and Southern African ecosystems	Land clearing needed to be counted, but strict demands for its cessation (plus in many areas revegetation) critical
	Malaysia
	Papua New Guinea
“Annex E”	United States, Canada and New Zealand	15 percent to 45 percent	Higher per capita emissions than other Enriched nations, so above ecological parity Elevated emissions due to a combination of: relatively low population densities abundant fossil fuel reserves (except New Zealand) poor public transport (Marriott and Mortimore, 2017) United ecologically by cold steppe and mountainous west-coast ecosystems	Concessions necessary to prevent siding with “Annex AAA” nations as actually happened Excepting New Zealand, severe reductions in “Annex AAA” emissions might not cut local emissions Whether inclusion of some “developing” nations and exclusion of most “developed” nations would mollify US not clear Need to recognise commonalities in ecology with below-parity Enriched and Tropical nations rather than “Annex AAA”
	Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Turkmenistan
China		0 percent (cap)	Definite ecological ties to “Annex E” as shares large areas of cold steppe Per capita emissions 11 percent of Australia’s in 1996, but above global average from 2007 Accounted for 26 percent of total global emissions by 2014 Industrial development the major source of Australian economic growth in Howard era Potential for large emissions growth evident during 1990s Emissions growth averaged 6.7 percent annually between 2000 and 2015	In actual Kyōtō Protocol aligned with “Annex E” and powerful “Annex AAA” nations to thwart serious emissions reductions Despite modest pre-1995 per capita emissions, possessed powerful economic interest in unrestricted emissions owing to: largest human population in world (twenty percent of total) abundant natural resources potential as global superpower Absence of an emissions cap major cause of global emissions increase since Kyōtō
Remaining below-ecological-parity nations		∞ (no targets or caps)	Large reductions in “Annex AAA” emissions would almost certainly limit local emissions Many economic opportunities if “Annex AAA” required to pay for its own pollution (e.g. hydropower and other renewable energy)	Critical need to ally based upon common interest in low emissions and upon existing below-ecological-parity emissions Need to demonstrate to “Annex AAA”, “Annex AA” and “Annex A” the effect of their large emissions as not being paid for by the emitters Need to demonstrate to the public that even high-income nations in this group required no targets and until severe and deep emissions reductions achieved by “Annex AAA” nations Must demand that “Annex AAA” nations pay doubly for the cost of climate change in these nations (Sunnstein, 2007)

Marriott and Mortimore (2017) demonstrate that “Annex AAA” nations currently constitute environmental tax havens with extremely cheap energy plus poor emissions and efficiency standards – policies that undo gains elsewhere. It has always seemed logical to me that if there be no tightening (or indeed a loosening) of emissions regulations in “Annex AAA” nations and severe tightening or moves towards a carbon-free economy elsewhere, then polluters will simply relocate all operations to “Annex AAA” countries. I argued this in a letter to The Age whilst Tony Abbott was removing Australia’s carbon tax, and this possibility being never publicly mentioned nor analysed or even considered by peer-reviewed journals does not make it implausible.

Australia already has a major fertility advantage over the EU, East Asia and New Zealand, which must translate into greater long-term geopolitical power. Ever-widening disparities in environmental standards and taxes will almost certainly exacerbate an already topsy-turvy situation. Movement of manufacturing jobs from a carbon-free Eurasia to an unregulated Australia could potentially reproduce baby boom-era fertility (over 3 children per woman) in Australia simultaneous with lowest-low or even lower (under 1 child per woman) in Europe, extratropical Asia, the Americas and New Zealand.

My relatives frequently argue that absence of reductions by extreme per capita emitters is insignificant re global climate change because “Annex AAA” aggregate emissions are small. This is fallacious, even when ignoring questions of ecology and environmental justice (Najam et. al, 2003; Althor et. al., 2015), which demand these nations cut per capita emissions to far below the global average. The root reason why no large-scale global emissions reductions have occurred is that the major contributors – the fossil fuel and lithophile metal corporations of Australia and the Arab oil states – are the most powerful corporations in a globalised world but must be entirely dismantled to cut emissions.

This is a much more unfavorable situation than envisioned in Sunnstein (2007, pp. 1678-1684) because to mitigate global warming these corporations and royalties must necessarily surrender extremely concentrated political power and financial wealth.

References:

• Abate, Randall S.; ‘Public Nuisance Suits for the Climate Justice Movement: The Right Thing and the Right Time’; Washington Law Review, vol. 85 (2010), pp. 197-250
• Althor, Glenn; Watson, James E.M. and Fuller, Richard A.; ‘Global mismatch between greenhouse gas emissions and the burden of climate change’; Scientific Reports 6, 20281 (2016)
• Asmelash, Henok Birhanu; ‘Falling oil prices and sustainable energy transition: Towards a multilateral agreement on fossil-fuel subsidies’; WIDER Working Paper 2016/13
• Hamilton, Clive; ‘The Dirty Politics of Climate Change’; Speech to the Climate Change and Business Conference Hilton Hotel, Adelaide, 20 February 2006 (published as .pdf)
• Koplow, Doug; Defining and Measuring Fossil Fuel Subsidies; in Skovgård, Jakob (editor); The Politics of Fossil Fuel Subsidies and their Reform, ISBN 9781108241946
• Marriott, Lisa and Mortimore, Anna; ‘Emissions, Road Transport, Regulation and Tax Incentives in Australia and New Zealand’; Journal of the Australasian Tax Teachers Association, vol. 12, no. 1 (2017), pp. 23-52
• Najam, Adil, Saleem-ul-Huq and Sokona, Youba; ‘Climate negotiations beyond Kyōtō: Developing countries’ concerns and interests’; Climate Policy 3(3) (September 2003), pp. 221-231
• Sunnstein, Cass R.; ‘The World vs. the United States and China – The Complex Climate Change Incentives of the Leading Greenhouse Gas Emitters’; University of California at Los Angeles Law Review (2007), pp. 1675-1700
• Whitley, Shelagh; ‘At cross-purposes: subsidies and climate-compatible investment’ (thesis); published April 2013 by Overseas Development Institute (UKAid)