Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-31T23:22:29.314Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

19 - What do we expect from an international climate agreement? A perspective from a low-income country

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Joseph E. Aldy
Affiliation:
Resources for the Future
Robert N. Stavins
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
Get access

Summary

The non-marginal nature of the climate problem and the importance of technological change

Allowing Earth's global mean temperature to rise by more than 1–2 degrees Celsius above its current level carries significant risk of triggering positive feedbacks that further raise temperature and lead to catastrophic climatic changes (Hansen, Sato et al. 2006; Lenton, Held et al. 2008). To limit warming to such a small rise in temperature, when current greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations already commit us to an increase of 0.3–0.9 degrees Celsius above a reference level equal to global average temperatures over the period 1980–1999 (IPCC 2007a), will require massive cuts in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by the middle of the century. The climate problem cannot be tackled by tinkering at the margins.

Eliminating CO2 emissions is difficult for the simple reason that it is cheaper to obtain energy by burning coal, oil, and gas than by harnessing the sun, the wind, or atomic nuclei. The 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reviewed the scientific literature and concluded that there are currently available, low-cost or even profitable opportunities for reducing CO2 emissions, mainly through the installation of energy-conserving equipment and techniques in industry, building, and transport. However, tapping low-cost reduction opportunities can achieve at most a cut of a few percentage points below business-as-usual (BAU) emissions (IPCC 2007). With current technologies, deeper cuts can come only by raising the cost of energy.

Type
Chapter
Information
Post-Kyoto International Climate Policy
Implementing Architectures for Agreement
, pp. 599 - 617
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×