For a number of years the US and other countries such as Canada, Russia and more recently Japan have said they are unwilling to sign any binding treaty to significantly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions unless China does the same.
They point to the fact that China is now the number one emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. In 2005, its emissions reached 7232 megatonnes.
This argument overlooks important data that undermine its validity and uphold the position of the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change: that countries have common but differentiate responsibilities in solving climate change. Any equitable approach to lowering global emissions must first examine the historical pattern of greenhouse gas releases into the atmosphere.
In a recent paper, Martin Khor, executive director of policy think tank for the developing world The South Centre, calculated that, in the period between 1850 and 2009, about 1214 gigatons of CO2 was released into the atmosphere. Of this amount, Annex 1 countries (rich countries many of which signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997) were responsible for 878 gigatons.
If one set out to determine what would be a fair share of the right to emit greenhouse gases during that period, based on their population as a percentage of the global population, it would amount to 336 gigatons (28 per cent of the total). In fact Annex 1 countries have overshot this by 568 gigatons.
The scientific consensus is that, if we wish to keep the average global temperature below 2 degrees celsius, we can only emit 750 gigatons of carbon (or equivalent) between now and 2050. In light of the historic carbon debt, how should these allocations be made?
Annex 1 countries comprise 16 per cent of the world's population, so the equitable allocation for these countries would be 120 gigatons. However since there is a debt overhang of 568 gigatons, their fair share ought to be a negative budget of 448 gigatons.
According to Khor, 'developed countries will have to go into the territory of 'negative emissions', in order that developing countries will have a decent level of 'development space' sufficient to cushion their path to low-emissions growth'.
A second consideration is that during the past three decades, China has become the workshop of