Common but differentiated convergence (CDC): a new conceptual approach to long-term climate policy

Höhne, Niklas; Elzen, Michel den; Weiss, Martin B. H.

doi:10.1080/14693062.2006.9685594

Cited by 79 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…A long list of alternative approaches for differentiation has been discussed in the literature (e.g. Höhne, den Elzen and Weiss, 2006;den Elzen, Brouns, Winkler and Ott, 2007;Bear et al, 2008;Pan and Chen, 2009;WBGU, 2009;Kanitkar et al, 2010;Brazil, 2014;Ngwadla and Rajamani, 2014;Winkler and Rajamani, 2014), but to date none of these has been agreed upon politically.…”

Section: The 2°c Limit As a Normative Foundation Of Climate Actionmentioning

confidence: 99%

UNFCCC before and after Paris – what's necessary for an effective climate regime?

et al. 2015

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What can reasonably be expected from the UNFCCC process and the climate conference in Paris 2015? To achieve transformative change, prevailing unsustainable routines embedded in socio-economic systems have to be translated into new and sustainable ones. This article conceptualises the UNFCCC and the associated policy processes as a catalyst for this translation by applying a structurational regime model. This model provides an analytical distinction of rules (norms and shared meaning) and resources (economic resources as well as authoritative and allocative power) and allows to conceptualise agency on various levels including beyond the nation states. The analysis concludes that the UNFCCC's narrow focus on emissions targets, which essentially is a focus on resources, has proven ineffective. In addition, the static division of industrialized and developing countries in the Convention's annexes and the consensus-based decision-making rules have impeded ambitious climate protection. The article concludes that the UNFCCC is much better equipped to provide rules for climate protection activities and should consciously expand this feature to improve its impact. Policy relevanceThe international community is negotiating a new global climate agreement, to be adopted at the Conference of the Parties (COP 21) in December 2015 in Paris and to be applicable from 2020. This article analyses the successes and limitations the UN-FCCC has had so far in combating climate change and it develops recommendations how to enhance efforts within and beyond the framework of the Convention. From our analysis we derive two main recommendations for an effective and structurationally balanced treaty: First, multi-dimensional mitigation contributions going beyond emission targets could strongly improve countries' ability to tailor their contributions around national political discourses. Second, the UNFCCC regime should be complemented with another treaty outside of the UNFCCC framework. This 'Alliance of the Ambitious' would allow the pioneers of climate protection to move ahead and enjoy the benefits of co-operation. The dynamics generated through such a club approach could be fed back into the UNFCCC, leading to increased ambition by others in future commitment cycles.

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Section: The 2°c Limit As a Normative Foundation Of Climate Actionmentioning

confidence: 99%

UNFCCC before and after Paris – what's necessary for an effective climate regime?

et al. 2015

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“…This means that all convergence trajectories in the methodology are based on a 'common convergence', but are 'differentiated' in time in that developing countries have the same obligation as developed countries to reduce emissions, but this obligation is delayed and conditional to the actions of the developed countries (Höhne et al, 2006a). More specifically, Annex I countries' per capita emissions converge within, for example, 40 years (2010-2050) to a specific uniform per capita emissions level.…”

Section: Differentiated Participationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This translates into developing countries having the same obligation as developed countries to reduce emissions, but the obligation is delayed and conditional to the actions carried out by developed countries. This concept is based on the idea of Höhne et al (2006a). Delayed participation of (least) developing countries could overcome data implementation problems for these countries (for more details, see section 2.2).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Triptych approach revisited: A staged sectoral approach for climate mitigation

2008

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“…5 Not surprisingly, most countries favored principles that would lessen the burden on themselves, such as developing countries preferring Egalitarian, Ability to Pay, Vertical and Rawlsian forms of international equity. Over time, more sophisticated approaches were put forth, such as the contraction and convergence approach (Höhne et al 2006), as well as other hybrid approaches. Still, none of these principles led to a truly global consensus on GHG reduction burden-sharing.…”

Section: Equity Principlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Equity, Emissions Allowance Trading and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change

et al. 2017

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The Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21), held in Paris in December 2015, resulted in voluntary greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction pledges, independent of each other, by 195 countries. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the equity implications of this "bottom-up" approach to climate change negotiations in two major ways. First we analyze the GHG reduction targets specified in the COP21 agreement prior to any emissions trading in terms of the Gini Coefficient equity metric. We also compare the pledges with specific equity principles proposed by developing countries for many years, such as the Egalitarian and Ability to Pay equity. Second, we analyze the equity outcomes after emissions trading takes place for a sample of countries/regions. We find that international policy coordination through a system of tradable GHG emissions allowances can greatly lower the cost to all participants of reducing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. An emissions trading system involving all countries and regions that made unconditional pledges at COP21 could reduce total GHG mitigation costs from an estimated $1.71 trillion to $0.4 trillion (in 2015 dollars), a savings of 77%. The ensuing allowance sales revenues would greatly enhance the capability of lower-income countries to meet their COP21 pledges. Moreover, the cost-savings in high-income countries would facilitate contributions to the promised fund of $100 billion per year to assist climate policy implementation in low-income countries.

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Common but differentiated convergence (CDC): a new conceptual approach to long-term climate policy

Cited by 79 publications

References 15 publications

UNFCCC before and after Paris – what's necessary for an effective climate regime?

UNFCCC before and after Paris – what's necessary for an effective climate regime?

The Triptych approach revisited: A staged sectoral approach for climate mitigation

Equity, Emissions Allowance Trading and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change

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