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The Greenhouse Development Rights Framework

The right to development in a climate constrained world

Stockholm Environment Institute, November 2008

The principal authors of this report are Paul Baer and Tom Athanasiou of EcoEquity and Sivan Kartha and Eric Kemp-Benedict of the Stockholm Environment Institute.

So constrained is the global carbon budget—global emissions must peak and start a precipitous decline in the next decade—that it is too late to talk of emissions reductions in Annex I countries alone. It is now necessary to secure significant cuts in emissions in the growing nations of the developing world. And yet, even in the burgeoning Chinese and Indian economies, there is still huge poverty. This is the crux of the current climate impasse.

Christian Aid, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, and the Stockholm Environment Institute are therefore proud to be associated with "The Greenhouse Development Rights Framework: The right to development in a climate constrained world" because it tackles this issue head on. It argues that while people remain poor, it is unacceptable and unrealistic to expect them to focus their valuable resources on the climate change crisis. And it draws the necessary conclusion—that others who are wealthier and have enjoyed higher levels of emissions already, must take on their fair share of the effort.

To be clear, this does not mean that the countries in which poor people live are not required to cut their emissions, but rather that the global consuming class—both within these countries and especially in the industrialized countries—are the ones who must pay.

External Link: The Greenhouse Development Rights Framework