Equity, burden sharing and development pathways: reframing international climate negotiations

Aurélie Méjean, Franck Lecocq () and Yacob Mulugetta

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, 2015, vol. 15, issue 4, 387-402

Abstract: Distribution issues have been critical in international negotiations on climate change. These have been framed as a ‘burden sharing’ problem since the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Three key difficulties are associated with this approach under a cap-and-trade system, namely the lack of consensus over what is equitable, uncertainty over estimates of policy costs, and lack of political realism and economic effectiveness of large-scale international transfers. These difficulties point to the risk of failure of post-2020 negotiations if these are based on the same premises of ‘sharing the emission reduction pie’ within a cap-and-trade regime. History has shown that different development paths can lead to similar economic performances with contrasted emission intensities. This paper proposes some insights into what could constitute a way forward, by recasting the discussion about emission reductions from a development perspective. It concludes that climate negotiations should depart from the current framework and shift to a debate focused on choosing a development path that would address domestic issues, while aligning pure climate policies with development policies. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Keywords: Burden sharing; Sustainable development; Equity; Development pathways (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1007/s10784-015-9302-9

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