After Paris:Inequality, Fair Shares, and the Climate Emergency

A report of the Civil Society Equity Review group

It comes, as you’ve probably noticed, at an interesting time:  After the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C, and of course, after COP24 in Katowice.  I won’t comment on the latter, for I agree with both the scientific realists, who tell us that at this point nothing really matters except ambition, and the political realists, who say that COP24 could have been much worse.  Even in the equity department! 

But leave that for another day.  I’m writing to announce After Paris: Inequality, Fair Shares, and the Climate Emergency, the new report of the Civil Society Equity Review group, which EcoEquity and its partners in the Climate Equity Reference Project are very proud to support. 

This report really is something new. Like our earlier reports, it evaluates the national climate pledges against an agreed set of transparent equity benchmarks. But it also leverages the “Low Energy Demand” scenario, one of the key illustrative scenarios in the IPCC’s recent special report, for its global mitigation pathway.  And, in a major innovation, it draws attention not only to the inequality between countries, but also to the inequality within countries, between the rich and the majority poor.

Here’s how the intro puts the matter: 

“If we are to achieve the critical outcome of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C, the wealthy (individuals and companies) in all nations must take the greatest action to both reduce their own emissions and to support the global transition. The global elites must not pass this burden onto the world’s poorest and most vulnerable individuals, nor onto the so-called ‘global middle class.’ The wealthy must not be able to hide from their responsibilities.

We conclude that the wealthier countries must urgently and dramatically deepen their domestic mitigation efforts, and that, if they are to contribute their fair shares to the common effort, they must also support additional actions outside their own borders. We also conclude that, while many developing country pledges do meet or exceed their fair shares, this is not universally true, and that in any case, they too will have to do much more, though as a general rule they will simply not be able to do so without significant levels of international financial support. The 1.5°C objective requires profound action in developing countries that cannot realistically, or fairly, be expected without meaningful levels of international support.”

After Paris also sports an impressive list of organizational endorsers, from all over the world.  And one of our organizational partners even called this report “elegant,” which is really something in this business!

Take a look.
Tom Athanasiou