Global North owes $170 trillion for excess CO2 emissions, study finds

Industrialized countries that emit excessive levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) must pay a total of USD 170 billion in offsets or reparations by the year 2050 to ensure compliance with the goals of the fight against climate changeaccording to an international study led by the University of Leeds and in which the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) participated.

This money, which amounts to almost six trillion dollars a year — about 7% of global gross domestic product (GDP) annually — would be distributed as compensation to low-emitting countries that are forced to decarbonize their economies much faster than is necessary.

The financial compensation for loss and damage suffered by the most vulnerable countries climate change due to excessive CO2 emissions by other nations is increasingly important in international negotiations on climate change. Delegates who attended last year’s talks on the COP27 in Egypt agreed to create a Loss and Damage Fund for countries affected by climate change.

The magazine Nature Sustainability a large study showing how an evidence-based compensation system can work in nearly 170 countries. Researchers have developed an interactive web page that allows you to explore which countries may be entitled to receive compensation and in what amountas well as which countries must pay them.

“This is the first system that shows that countries historically responsible for excessive CO2 emissions have an obligation to fund offsetting,” he says. Jason Hickelresearcher at ICTA-UAB and co-author of the study.

Countries historically responsible for excessive CO2 emissions have an obligation to fund offsets

Jason Hickel, researcher at ICTA-UAB and co-author of the study

Andrew Fanning, director of the study and researcher at the University of Leeds, explains that “to avoid the worst effects of climate change, all countries must urgently stop burn fossil fuels and carry out those activities that emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But not all countries have contributed equally to this problem.

“If we are asking nations to quickly decarbonize their economies, even if they bear no responsibility for excess emissions that destabilize the climate, it’s a matter of climate justice be compensated for this unfair burden,” he adds.

Climate change debtors and debtors

According to the study, Spain will have to pay a total of $1.9 trillion from now until the year 2050 for excessive CO2 emissions, which is equivalent to US$1,310 per capita per year.

UK must pay $7.7 trillion during this period or a payment of almost 3,500 euros per year until 2050, while the values ​​for the United States would amount to 80 trillion dollars or an annual per capita payment of more than $7,200. India, a country that historically emits little CO2, would be entitled to receive compensation of 57 billion dollarsor nearly $1,200 per capita per year by 2050.

Brazil, Colombia and Mexico are the Latin American countries that owe the most money in absolute terms. Brazil would receive US$6.3 trillion, while Colombia would receive US$1.6 trillion and Mexico US$1.5 trillion.

The US quadruples its allocation of a fair share of carbon. /ICTA-UAB

The compensation system is based on the idea that the atmosphere is a common good, a natural resource that everyone should use equitably and sustainably. Assign a monetary value to the losses suffered by countries with low carbonthe researchers first obtained the most recent remaining global “carbon budgets” estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

A carbon balance represents the amount of carbon that could be released into the atmosphere to achieve a certain climate target such as, for example, keeping global warming at 1.5°C. As of the year 1960, this carbon balance is equivalent to 1.8 trillion tons of CO2.

The researchers then calculated a “fair share” of that total carbon budget for 168 countries, based on their population size. They compared each country’s equal share with the amount of CO2 it has historically emitted since 1960, along with an ambitious scenario of decarbonisation from current levels to “net zero” by 2050.

Some countries have not exceeded their quota, while others, especially the industrialized countries of the North, have already they exceeded it considerablyappropriating the part of the atmospheric goods that would correspond to other countries.

For example, the UK used 2.5 times more for its part, and the United States more than four times. India, meanwhile, used just under a quarter of its share.

Using carbon prices from the latest IPCC scenarios, the researchers assigned a monetary value for excess emissions of each country in a world scenario below 1.5 ºC. The total value amounted to US$192 billion (in a range between US$141 and US$298 billion), of which 89% (US$170 billion) corresponded to the North and the rest to the countries of the South, mainly oil producers, such as Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.

In this system, this money would be divided among the low carbon countries based on the part of the subsidy they would lose. A group of 55 low-emitting countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and India, would be entitled to an average compensation of US$1,160 per capita per year in a world that keeps global warming below 1.5°C.

“Meanwhile, the countries that would appropriate a smaller part of your fair share they would also be entitled to lesser compensation. We found 13 countries that would sacrifice less than 25% in our net zero scenario, including China, which would be entitled to receive around US$280 per capita per year on average,” says Fanning.

For Hickel, climate change reflects clear patterns of atmospheric colonization. “Social movements and negotiators in the global South have long argued that countries that have produced excessive emissions should be compensated or repaired by the weather related damagethat fall disproportionately on the poorest countries that contributed little or nothing to the crisis,” says Hickel.

“Our study focuses only on trade-offs due to atmospheric appropriation, and this needs to be considered in addition to broader questions about transition, adaptation and damage costs,” he continues.

According to the teacher, attention should also be paid to the great class inequalities within nations. The responsibility for excess emissions lies largely with the wealthy classes, who have very high consumption and who exercise disproportionate power over production and national policy. “They are the ones who should bear the costs of compensation”, he concludes.