Allocating planetary boundaries to large economies: Distributional consequences of alternative perspectives on distributive fairness

Abstract

The planetary boundaries (PBs) framework proposes global quantitative precautionary limits for human perturbation of nine critical Earth system processes. Together they define a global safe operating space for human development. Translating the global limits to the national level increases their policy relevance. Such translation essentially divides up the global safe operating space. What is considered fair distribution is a political decision and there is no globally agreed principle that can be applied. Here, we analyse the distributional consequences of alternative perspectives on distributive fairness. We scale the global limits of selected PBs to resource budgets for the EU, US, China and India, using three allocation approaches from the climate change literature. Furthermore, we compare the allocated budgets to 2010 environmental footprints of the four economies, to assess their performance with respect to the selected PBs. The allocation approaches are based on (1) current shares of global environmental pressure ('grandfathering'); (2) 'equal per capita' shares, and (3) 'ability to pay' to reduce environmental pressure. The results show that the four economies are not living within the global safe operating space. Their 2010 environmental footprints are larger than the allocated budgets for all approaches and parameterisations analysed for the PBs for climate change and biogeochemical flows, and, except for India, also for the PB for biosphere integrity. Grandfathering was found to be most favourable for the EU and US for all PBs, and ability to pay as least favourable. For climate change and biogeochemical flows, ability to pay even resulted in negative resource budgets for the two economies. In contrast, for China and India, equal per capita allocation and ability to pay were most favourable. Results were sensitive to the parameterisation. Accounting for future population growth in the equal per capita approach benefits India, with lower budgets for the EU, US and China, while accounting for future economic growth in ability to pay benefits the EU and US, with lower budgets for China and India. Our results underline the need for all four economies to act, while hinting at diverging preferences for specific allocation approaches. The methodology and results may help countries to define policy targets in line with global ambitions, such as those defined by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), accounting for differences in countries' circumstances and capacities. Further attention is required for PB-specific allocation approaches and integration of biophysical and socioeconomic considerations in the allocation.

Designing biomass supply chains within planetary boundaries

“…Several approaches are available that differ in their conceptual basis. The most widely used methods follow either an egalitarian or a non‐egalitarian approach 20,21 . Egalitarian principles propose equal per capita shares to allocate the environmental budgets.…”

Linking Responsible Consumption and Production: A Global Assessment of Cropland Use for Agri-Food Production

“…Environmental limits can be defined using the planetary boundaries framework, which delineates safe environmental limits for the human use of natural resources while ensuring the stability and resilience of the Earth system (Rockström et al, 2009;Steffen et al, 2015). National consumption-based environmental limits can be defined according to a fair-share approach, where each person is allocated an equal share of a global resource (Fang et al, 2015a;Häyhä et al, 2016;Lucas et al, 2020;O'Neill et al, 2018). Conversely, national productionbased environmental limits can be defined according to biophysical measures of natural resource availability in each country (Li et al, 2019;Shaikh et al, 2021).…”

“…Given globalised agri-food trade and complex telecoupling among countries, explicitly linking the environmental impacts of agri-food consumption and production and assessing these against country-specific environmental limits is essential to achieve responsible consumption and production, as mandated by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12 (UN, 2015). Delineating national environmental limits for both consumption and production is therefore paramount, yet current research has typically assessed agri-food system sustainability from either a consumption or production perspective (Kastner et al, 2014b;Lucas et al, 2020;Mace et al, 2014;Nilsson and Persson, 2012;Nykvist et al, 2013;Osei-Owusu et al, 2019;Ryberg et al, 2020;Yu et al, 2013). For example, Gerten et al (2020) assessed the environmental impacts of global food production against production-based environmental limits for biosphere integrity, land-system change, freshwater use and nitrogen flows.…”

“…Achieving responsible agri-food consumption and production is the joint responsibility of consumers and producers (Kastner et al, 2012;Lenzen et al, 2007;Vanham et al, 2019). Therefore, assessments of responsible agri-food consumption and production need to take a more holistic view to consider virtual flows of natural resources embedded in traded commodities (Lucas et al, 2020). Responsible agri-food consumption needs to consider not only whether a country is within its safe consumption-based environmental limits, but also whether the production of consumed commodities contributes to the exceedance of productionbased environmental limits in their country of origin.…”

Sectoral carbon budgets as an evaluation framework for the built environment

“…Employing these principles, it has been shown how issues of fairness can quantitatively condition this international allocation. Minimal fairness requirements include securing basic needs, attributing historical responsibility for past emissions, accounting for benefits from past emissions and not exceeding countries' societally feasible emission reduction rate (Williges et al 2020;Lucas et al 2020). The findings of this literature are briefly summarised including approaches of (immediate or future convergence) equal per capita (EPC) allocations.…”