C&C Timeline
C&C Foundation
based on the first full list of national carbon emissions published by World Resources Institute. (Guardian newspaper, 15/06/90)
1990: Statement to Second World Climate Conference, Geneva by Green Party UK,
Le Parti Ecologiste Suisse, Les Verts and The Ecologist Magazine.
"...The first step on the path to elementary and necessary justice, for everybody's sake, is that all people be considered equal. We present a table that shows the mean contribution, per country of each individual to the augmentation of the global greenhouse effect...
The current global per capita per annum figure for greenhouse gas emissions is 1.28 tonnes. If we reduce it by 60% (consistent with the IPCC required target for emission restraint for stabilising atmospheric concentrations to 0.512 tonnes per person per annum, still 1/3rd of countries listed on current emissions, are below this revised figure.."
(Nov 1990)
1991: Proto Contraction & Convergence Statement.
Drafted by Jim Bereen and Aubrey Meyer. (Guardian, 18/06/91)
"...On average each person in the world contributes 1.65 metric tonnes of carbon and equivalents each year. 40% of this figure i.e. 0.66 MTCE thus represents each individual's output threshold to forcing future climate change."
"Currently (1990) 53% of the people in the world produce greenhouse gas emissions at or below this threshold figure, and their emissions contribute only 90% of the non- forcing total. They therefore provide the equivalent of a 10% "credit" (subsidy) which is taken up by the rest of the world."
"This inequity is particularly unacceptable at a time when the majority of people are struggling to meet basic human needs. it is also unacceptable as the forcing emissions total is derived largely from unsustainable, luxury-based activities in countries one of whose governments has still refused even the principle of setting targets for CO2 stabilization let alone reduction..."Signed by 50 MPs inc Paddy Ashdown, Simon Hughes, Ann Clywd, Charles Kennedy, Margaret Ewing, Michael Meacher, Clare Short and many others, including Aubrey Meyer Penny Kemp (GCI), Paul Ekins, Teddy Goldsmith, Petra Kelly, Susan George, Sara Parkin.
http://www.gci.org.uk/Documents/OrigStatement2.pdf
1992: Global Commons Institute: Statement:
"...Nothing less than a viable political agenda for the equitable rationing of the planet's finite resources is now needed. Politics to achieve this must acknowledge the physical limits which the biosphere imposes on us and the political limits which global inequities place on our abilities to find globally acceptable solutions." (Guardian, 14/08/92)...As a first step, GCI proposes that each person alive today receive an equal share of emissions but subject to the stabilisation criteria published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1990. This would be recognised as a right. National impacts would then be assessed as percents (of global excess emissions) credit or debit according to whether national balances exceed or fall short of the stabilisation threshold..." (Guardian 18/12/92)
1993: Dr. Ernst von Weizacker, Director, Wuppertal Institute for Energy, Climate and Transport, Germany:
"The Global Commons Institute is one of the few places in the world giving the necessary emphasis to a radical questioning of short-sighted economic theory. GCI's approach is rational and compassionate. Their voice must be heart and should be further elaborated in the international debate on global warming and other global ecological challenges.
Their papers are stimulating. The characterisation of countries' socioeconomic efficiencies particularly, is quite original. It would be highly desirable to have them on board for future work on equity in the IPCC context."
1994: Submission by GCI to IPCC Working Group Three (IPCC WG3 SAR)
"...Overall, this is not a complicated debate. The resources in question are global common property and vital to survival. The well-being of all people now and into the future depend on the integrity of these resources being maintained. There is a simple choice to be made; - either we accept that everyone has an equal right to be here and to share the benefits of these resources or we reject that everyone has equal rights in this. This is choosing for equity and survival or for increasing inequity and loss of sustainability. It is that simple..."
"...The key question which now also arises is this: - are all human lives equally valuable or not? Moreover, should economists employed by the nations responsible for causing the problems of climate change, have the job of valuing the lives which are going to be lost? And even more to the point, should they value the lives of the people who are not responsible for creating the climate changes, as less valuable than the lives of those responsible? Surely we all have a fundamentally equal right to be here: surely each person is equally valuable in this fundamental way? So far the global cost/benefit analysts say no, this is not the case..."
"Take for example the (UK-government-funded) Centre for the Social and Economic Research of the Global Environment (C-SERGE) based in the UK. David Pearce is one of its directors and he is also the IPCC's convening lead author on "Social Costs". C-SERGE has already published a valuation of the lives to be lost. In a recent research paper it stated that the cash value of a "statistical life" in the EC or the USA is $1,500,000 per head, but in "poor" countries such as China, it is only $150,000.4 [The disparate figures are derived from peoples' ability-to-pay for damage insurance]. In global cost/benefit analysis, this means therefore these economists discard a real Chinese life ten times more easily than a real life in the EC or the USA. This an example of how you keep the damage costs below the emissions mitigation costs.
... This approach is one of the great scandals of our times. It has now been dubbed "the Economics of Genocide" in some of the world's major media and an international protest campaign over this has been growing since it was launched by GCI in June 1994."
http://www.gci.org.uk/Documents/Nairob3b_.pdf
1995 First Conference of the Parties (COP1) Berlin: Kamal Nath, Minister for Environment & Forests, Indian Government, backs Contraction & Convergence:
[Policy content derived from the GCI submission to IPCC WG3 SAR]
"...We believe that any proposed solutions to the problems [which both cause and proceed from global climate change] which are not equitable will not work. In a very real and fundamental way, equity is the solution - i.e. properly valuing each other and the planet. A failure to understand and apply this is a failure to appreciate the double-jeopardy in which humanity is now situated. (March 1995)"
http://www.gci.org.uk/Documents/Nairob3b_.pdf
1995: Evidence to the IPCC Second Assessment [SAR 1995] on 'The Economics of Genocide' in SAR's Global Cost/Benefit Analysis.
"Aubrey Meyer, director of the Global Commons Institute, which has produced similar figures, says: "The calculations the governments are being asked to endorse are profoundly unreliable and could provide an excuse for them to do nothing. By placing such a low value on the lives of most of the world's people, they seem to endorse the economics of genocide."
Lead Story - Independent newspaper, July 23rd 1995
http://www.gci.org.uk/Documents/sss___+.pdf1995 IPCC's Second Assessment Report WG3 Chapter 6, 'Policy Makers Summary' was directly influenced by GCI's submission:
"Literature on the subject in this section is controversial and mainly based on research done on developed countries, often extrapolated to developing countries. There is no consensus about how to value statistical lives or how to aggregate statistical lives across countries.
Monetary valuation should not obscure the human consequences of anthropogenic climate change damages, because the value of life has meaning beyond monetary value."
Pro C&C Statement by Africa Group of Nations at UNFCCC
First: There must be limits on all GHGs if the danger to our climate is to be averted....
Second: A globally agreed ceiling of GHG emissions can only be achieved by adopting the principle of per capita emissions rights that fully take into account the reality of population growth and the principle of differentiation.
Third: Achievement of a safe limit to global GHG emissions can be achieved by reducing the emissions of Annex One while at the same time ensuring that there is controlled growth of future emissions from Non-Annex One countries, reflecting our legitimate right to sustainable economic growth. (Aug 1997)
http://www.gci.org.uk/AFRICA_GROUP.pdf 1997: UNFCCC COP-3, Kyoto, Japan
Context: The US insisted that emissions trading be made part of the Kyoto Protocol. The Developing Countries – led by India, the Africa Group and China – insisted that the quid- pro-quo had to be equal per capita-based "Contraction and Convergence" [C&C]. In the early hours of 11/12/97, the USA's lead negotiator, Jonathan Pershing, referred to C&C as
'elements for the future, perhaps for a 'next agreement that we may all ultimately seek to engage in'.Chairman:
"I thank you very much. ...... May I ask again the distinguished delegate of the USA if they have another suggestion to propose in connection with the proposals made by the distinguished delegate of India. He does."UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
" . . . . It does seem to us that the proposals by for example India and perhaps by others who speak to Contraction and Convergence are elements for the future, elements perhaps for a next agreement that we may ultimately all seek to engage in . . . ."
http://www.gci.org.uk/COP3_Transcript.pdf1998 Andrew Lees Award
"Aubrey Meyer, almost single-handedly and with minimal resources, has made an extraordinary impact on the negotiations on the Climate Change Treaty, one of the most important of our time, through his campaign for a goal of equal per capita emissions, which is now official negotiating position of many governments, and is gaining acceptance in developed and developing countries alike."
1998 GLOBE Parliamentarians
SUMMARY
On Sunday the 171h of May, the leaders of the de~eloped world and Russia
will sit down in Birmingham at the World Economic Summit to discuss
climate change.
They will discuss emissions trading and the involvement of the developing
world. They have an opportunity 10 consolidate the gains made in Kyoto and
to include the developing world on an equitable basis, in an agreement that
would last for centuries.
Alternatively they can lower their vision and settle for a short-term 'hot-air'
swap with the Russians that will outrage India and China and set back
progress in climate change negotiations due to culminate al COP-4 in Buenos
Aires in November 1998. A sub-global agreement ignoring two thirds of the
world would be a sordid and Short-term cop-out.
Not only is the latter choice undesirable, it is unnecessary. There is a global
solution to the self-evidently global problem of climate change that already
commands widespread international support.
GLOBE International adopted the 'Contraction and Convergence' analysis
in May 1977. Since then, I and my colleagues have campaigned for its
acceptance. This pamphlet is a record of those efforts and provides a short
summary of the work of the Global Commons Institute (GCI) in this field. I
would like to pay tribute to all the GLOBE parliamentarians who have fought
so hard for this cause and particularly to the work of Aubrey Meyer and the
GCI team on whose brilliant analysis the campaign is based.
'Contraction and Convergence' is the only practical and convincing way
forward for the world. It is vital that the G8 leaders recognize this and
commit themselves to negotiating ahead of COP4 the global solution for
what everyone accepts is the global problem.
Such negotiation can only be based on the principle of equity and the
establishment of the robust and flexible model contained in these pages.
http://www.gci.org.uk/Documents/globe_.pdf
1999: UK & Danish Environment Ministers back C&C:
"I do believe that 'contraction and convergence' provides an effective, equitable market- based framework within which governments can co-operate to avert climate change."
Michael Meacher MP, Environment Minister UK
"That global partnership to avoid the danger of climate change requires that we start to discuss the arrangements for sharing of both responsibilities and entitlements, based on the principles of precaution and equity, that best defend the aspirations and security of all nations for the future. The approach of 'Contraction and Convergence' is precisely such an idea.""
Svend Auken MP, Environment Minister Denmark
http://www.gci.org.uk/Documents/GCI_IPCC_TAR_WG3_FRAMEWORK_GUESSWORK__.pdf2000: Schumacher Award:
AUBREY MEYER and his GLOBAL COMMONS INSTITUTE receive the Award for his campaign to bring the threat of global warming to the attention of the public and policy- makers, and for his formulation of a pioneering solution which he calls 'Contraction and Convergence'.""
2000: Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution recommends C&C:
The government should press for a future global climate agreement based on the contraction and convergence approach, combined with international trading in emission permits. Together, these offer the best long-term prospect of securing equity, economy and
international consensus (4.69).(Energy: the Changing Climate, RCEP 2000)
http:// www.gci.org.uk/Documents/RCEP4.pdf 2001: Guardian newspaper:
"...Fortunately a blueprint exists which not only answers the US objections to Kyoto, but offer a coherent strategy for cutting greenhouse gases. The plan, known as Contraction & Convergence, is simpler than Kyoto's Byzantine complexity, offers a way of getting the Americans to come on board, has built-in flexibility and a market mechanism built into it. Although C&C was the brainchild of green activists, the irony is that it would be good for business. It is hardly surprising that it is winning new supporters all the time, including Michael Meacher, the environment minister. (Larry Elliott, Guardian, July)
2001: UK House of Commons EDM EDM325 - International Terrorism, The Energy Review, The Kyoto Protocol And The Rio +10 Conference
"....notes that terrorism is more likely to flourish in conditions of social injustice and environmental degradation; further notes the significant disparities in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions between developed and developing countries; further welcomes Recommendation 3 of the RCEP's 22nd Report that 'The Government should press for a further global climate agreement based on the Contraction and Convergence approach, combined with the international trading in emission permits;..."Signed by 97 MPs, 30/10/0
2004: City of London Lifetime's Achievement Award to Aubrey Meyer:
"From the worlds of business, academia, politics and activism, Aubrey Meyer has made the greatest contribution to the understanding and combating of climate change having led strategic debate or policy formation. In recognition of an outstanding personal contribution to combating climate change at an international level through his efforts to enhance the understanding and adoption of the principle of Contraction and Convergence."http://www.gci.org.uk/Documents/City_of_London_Award_Booklet_Single_Sides__.pdf 2004 UK House of Commons: Early Day Motion 1529: Archbishop of Canterbury and C&C:
That this House welcomes the Archbishop of Canterbury's call for the Government to take the lead internationally in pressing for contraction and convergence of greenhouse gas emissions as the underlying principle of its policy on the Kyoto Protocol during the Prime Minister's chairmanship of the G8 and presidency of the European Union in 2005.Signed by 47 MPs, 30/10/01
2005 UK House of Commons: EDM538 - Contraction And Convergence
TThat this House recognises the serious threat posed to all life on this planet by climate change as a result of increasing greenhouse gas emissions; notes with grave concern the continued failure of the United States federal administration in particular to join international efforts to cut these emissions levels; further notes the extreme differences in emissions levels per head between nations; recognises that the objections of non-signatories to the Kyoto Treaty that it does not include rapidly developing nations such as India and China requires the need for a new global policy to tackle climate change beyond Kyoto; therefore advocates a policy of contraction and convergence, in which all nations seek to reduce their levels of greenhouse gas emissions, and converge emissions levels towards a point where all citizens of the world are entitled to emit equal amounts of pollutants recalls the Prime Minister's promise to make tackling climate change a priority for the United Kingdom's presidencies of the EU and G8 this year; and urges the Government to adopt this policy and use this opportunity to urge other national governments to do likewise..Signed by 64 MPs (18/01/05)
2005 UK House of Commons: EDM961 - G8 And Contraction And Convergence
That this House welcomes the recent decision of the Synod of the Church of England to support contraction and convergence as the overarching framework to tackle climate change; further welcomes the comments of the Honourable Kalonzo Musyoka, Minister for Environment and Natural Resources, Kenya, given at a meeting for African Environment Ministers in Nairobi in February, supporting contraction and convergence; congratulates Aubrey Meyer, founder of the Global Commons Institute, which formulated the concept of contraction and convergence, on receiving the Climate Change Champion Award made by the Corporation of London, for his work in attracting the support of many government and international agencies for contraction and convergence; and calls upon the Government to seek, during its presidency of the G8, to advance the international effort to avert the dangers of climate change by promoting the constitutional framework of contraction and convergence, which embodies the principle of equal rights to the global commons..Signed by 165 MPs (21/03/05)
2005 : UK House of Commons: EDM1141 Contraction And Convergence Approach To Climate Change
That this House welcomes the presentation of the Climate Change (Contraction and Convergence) Bill, which seeks to establish a clear, full-time framework for tackling climate change; notes that humankind has no choice but to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a sustainable level within a defined period; further notes that it is unlikely that any international framework will succeed if it is not based on the principle of equity through the equal distribution of emissions rights, and that any solution put forward which does not solve the problem of climate change faster than the problem is created is no solution at all; and calls upon members of parliaments around the world to put forward similar bills in their own legislatures.Signed by 58 MPs (29/11/05)
http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=29500&SESSION=875 2005, Kenya Government calls for C&C at COP11
"To forestall further damage, deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions than as presently contained in the Kyoto Protocol are urgently required and these must be organised as universal and equal entitlements as engraved in the principle of the Contraction & Convergence Framework".
(Nov 28 - Dec 9, 2005)
2006: Royal Institute of British Architects adopts C&C as policy.
2006 UK House of Commons: EDM2465 - Prime Minister's Speech:
That this House congratulates the Prime Minister on his speech at King's College, London on 26th June, in which he called for an acceleration in discussions leading to a new framework to tackle climate change; notes that both he and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have praised the contraction and convergence proposal; and urges the Government to ensure that this model features highly in future negotiations.Signed by 32 MPs, (28/06/06)
2007 House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee endorses C&C:
...we recommend the Government explicitly endorses, and promotes internationally, the Contraction and Convergence method, or a method similar to it. Under this method, emissions budgets allocated to each nation would be progressively amended until all would arrive at an equal per capita level, consistent with an internationally agreed stabilization level. As we have previously noted, the Government has implicitly accepted this principle by endorsing the RCEP's recommendation for a 60% cut in UK CO2 which was based on Contraction and Convergence. We have also concluded that any framework which involves radical emissions reductions would in practice resemble Contraction and Convergence, given the current imbalance in per capita emissions between the developed and developing world, and the resultant necessity for the bulk of emissions cuts to come from developed nations in order to meet a global stabilization target. But this only underlines the inconsistency in the Government's framing of a target to reduce UK emissions without advocating an international agreement based on Contraction and Convergence, or something very similar. (Seventh Report of Session 2006-07 HC460)
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmenvaud/460/460.pdf 2007 Aubrey Meyer wins UNEP FI Award
"UNEP FI for the first time recognized executives within the financial services who have contributed in a significant manner to the development of financial ideas, innovative products, institutional change and or the carbon markets themselves through the UNEP FI Carbon Leadership Award. Four executive awards were given for each category of financial services: Banking, Insurance/Reinsurance, Asset Management/Private Banking and Pension Funds. In addition, an award was given for a representative from civil society who had worked towards the same end. Award winners were selected from a large number of entries by a small group of UNEP FI's long term climate change advisors. The civil society category award for the most impressive commitment and innovative thinking around climate change and the financial sector with the UNEP FI Carbon Leadership Award went to Aubrey Meyer of the Global Commons Institute."
2008: Endorsement of C&C at Fifteenth Summit of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), Colombo, Sri Lanka (2-3/08/09)
"The Heads of State or Government affirmed that every citizen of this planet must have an equal share of the planetary atmospheric space. In this context, they endorsed the convergence of per capita emissions of developing and developed countries on an equitable basis for tackling climate change"
Signed by Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan; Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed, Chief Advisor to government of Bangladesh; Jigmi Y. Thinley, PM of Bhutan; Dr. Manmohan Singh, PM of India; Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, President of the Maldives; Girija Prasad Koirala, PM of Nepal; Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, PM of Pakistan; Mahinda Rajapaksa, PM of Sri Lanka.
2008: Endorsement of C&C by Professor Bill McGuire, Director, AON/Benfield Hazard Research Centre, UCL, London
"There is a way of cutting global greenhouse gas emissions that is equitable, sensible and workable. It is called Contraction & Convergence, or simply C&C, and it is the brainchild of the South African musician Aubrey Meyer, founder of the London-based Global Commons Institute. Meyer is one of the most extraordinary characters on the climate change activist 'scene', who grasped the urgency of finding a viable solution to climate change earlier than most of us realised that there was a problem..."
© Bill McGuire, Seven Years to Save the Planet, (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2008)
2008: Honorary Fellowship of Royal Institute of British Architects to Aubrey Meyer:
For his challenging and inspirational promotion of environmental issues, in particular his development of the concept of Contraction and Convergence.
2008: The Garnaut Climate Change Review, commissioned by The Australian Prime Minister and all State Premiers, endorses C&C:
"The per capita approach is generally referred to as 'contraction and convergence (Global Commons Institute, 2000) and has figured in the international debate for some time. It has been promoted by India and has been discussed favorably in Germany and the United Kingdom (German Advisory Council on Global Change, 2003; UK Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, 2000). Recent reports have shown increasing support for this approach internationally; see, for example, Stern (2008) and the Commission on Growth and Development (2008)."
(www.garnautreview.org.au)
2008: Aubrey Meyer nominated for Nobel Peace Prize by UK MPs:
"We believe it that it would, now, be right to recognise the man who has done most to provide an international solution to averting the disaster of global warming... If his initiative was recognised now then it would send exactly the right message to world leaders as we consider what comes after the end of the Kyoto round in 2012"Nominators: Colin Challen MP (Labour), Peter Ainsworth MP (Conservative), Chris Huhne (Liberal Democrat), Michael Meacher MP (Labour), Joan Walley (Labour), Martin Caton MP (Labour), Tim Yeo MP (Conservative)
http://http://www.martin-caton.co.uk/news?PageId=4ec8ff91-07dd-e3d4-5d47-57362266c35c 2009: Lord Adair Turner (chairman of UK Climate Change Committee) endorses C&C in evidence to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee:
"...When we proceed from the global target to the UK target, we are suggesting something which is reasonably pragmatically close to contraction and convergence. And I think that it is important to realize that actually, although people get very worked up about precise methodologies - contract and converge or other variants, or Triptych etc - its is very difficult to imagine a long-term path for the world which isn't somewhat related to a contract and converge type approach."
(4/3/09)
2009: Professor Ross Garnaut writes in support of C&C:
"Over the last twenty years, Aubrey Meyer's sustained work through the Global Commons Institute (GCI) with the "Contraction and Convergence" - or C&C - concept and campaign, has created a global standard that is now widely recognized as an outstanding and essential contribution to the global debate on what to do to avoid dangerous rates of climate change. This is remarkable and reflects the integrity of the argument where C&C is mathematically rooted in the science of climate change and marries the limit to future human emissions that avoids dangerous rates of climate change to the politically compelling requirement of equal shares in the use of the atmosphere subject to that limit...
... The contraction and convergence idea was at the core of the proposals for international agreement that are part of the Garnaut Climate Change Review..."
http://www.gci.org.uk/2009_Funding_Appeal.pdff(03/03/09)
2009: Rajendra Pachauri (chair, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) endorses C&C:
"...If we are to limit global temperature rise to no more than 2 - 2.4 degrees Celsius, global emissions must peak no later than 2015 and start declining thereafter. The faster the decline the greater the possibility of our avoiding some of the worst impacts of climate change. So when one looks at the kind of reductions that would be required globally, the only means for doing so is to ensure that there's contraction and convergence and I think there's growing acceptance of this reality. I don't see how else we might be able to fit within the overall budget for emissions for the world as a whole by 2050. We need to start putting this principle into practice as early as possible... ...On the matter of 'historic responsibility', there is no doubt that accelerating the rate of convergence relative to the rate of contraction is a way of answering that and we really need to get agreement from Developed and Developing Countries to subscribe to this principle..."
(25/06/09)
2009: Global Humanitarian Forum backs C&C as basis for future climate deal:
"The principle of contraction and convergence with a population base year should provide the basis framework for global greenhouse gas emission reductions..."
"No deal is better than a bad deal": it would be more constructive to avoid conclusion at the 2009 UN Climate Conference at Copenhagen of any climate change agreement that would not provide for basic levels of safety, equity and predictability..."Key recommendations in Report of 2009 Global Humanitarian Forum, Geneva.
http://www.gci.org.uk/Briefings/C&C29sept_.pdf 2010 Endorsement by Gwynne Dyer of C&C:
"....The idea behind 'Contraction [of emissions] and Convergence [of rights to emit), is now mainstream and, like all successful ideas, it now has many would-be fathers, but it was Aubrey Meyer and his Global Commons Institute who took it to market and sold it. This notion that equity demands a global transfer of resources from those who pollute more to those who pollute less, on condition that those resources are used to minimize the growth in emissions as those poorer countries grow economically, is now at the basis of almost all serious negotiations between the countries of the North and the South on Kyoto-related topics, even if the Northern side is still not very comfortable with it.
Moreover, no deal will be worth the paper it's written on if it does not tie the cuts that are negotiated to a clearly defined target of how much carbon dioxide we can tolerate in the atmosphere..."
(© Gwynne Dyer, One World Publications, 2010)
2010 Open letter to Chris Huhne calling for high level public forum about C&C signed by 200 eminent scientists, health professionals, economists, environmentalists
"...Several ideas derived from C&C have surfaced since Kyoto with ideas that can be perhaps in various ways incorporated into C&C. However, there is an overwhelming need for an over-arching UNFCCC-compliant Framework that enables the globally competing interests of the over-consuming and the under-consuming to be reconciled with each other and with the objective of the UNFCCC in a non-random manner.
We feel that C&C is the veteran and indeed the apex example of this and urge you to consider our request. At Kyoto in December 1997 and shortly before they withdrew from these negotiations, the USA stated, "C&C contains elements for the next agreement that we may ultimately all seek to engage in."
The adversarial reasons for their withdrawal then were in play again at COP-15: -
http:// www.gci.org.uk/public/COP_15_C&C.swfC&C answers this in a unifying and constitutional way and the need for this answer becomes increasingly critical."Signed by Colin Challen, Professor Martin Rees, Sir John Houghton, Sir Crispin Tickell, Sir John Harman, Professor Sir Michael Marmot, Lord Anthony Giddens, Professor Tim Jackson, Jeremy Legett, Jonathon Porritt, Susan George, Professor John Guillebaud, Tim Smit, Roger Graef, Lord Puttnam, Professor Sir Andy Haines and many others:
http://www.gci.org.uk/politics.html Excerpt from Seven Years to Save the Planet (pp223-5), by Prof Bill McGuire, Director AON/Benfield Hazard Research Centre, UCL (2008)
(Summary)
"Contraction & Convergence is based upon the simple and fair principle that everyone on the planet has the right to emit the same amount of carbon dioxide. Progressively lower ceilings for global emissions would be defined, with each country's emissions quota eventually proportional to the size of its population. Any country unable to use its allocation could trade entitlements to emit with a nation that needed more. A well- publicised goal of C&C is the convergence of emissions so that each human emits about one third of a tonne of carbon dioxide every year, stabilising greenhouse gases around 450ppm in 2100."
"There is a way of cutting global greenhouse gas emissions that is equitable, sensible and workable. It is called Contraction & Convergence, or simply C&C, and it is the brainchild of the South African musician Aubrey Meyer, founder of the London-based Global Commons Institute. Meyer is one of the most extraordinary characters on the climate change activist 'scene', who grasped the urgency of finding a viable solution to climate change earlier than most of us realised that there was a problem. Almost two decades ago he gave up a professional music career that included playing with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and writing for the Royal Ballet, to focus on the issue. Through the vehicle of the grand- sounding Global Commons Institute, which was actually launched in Meyer's bedroom and remains close to being a one-man band, the C&C concept has been forced onto the world stage by Meyer's unstinting enthusiasm and incredible work rate. So successful has the lobbying process been that C&C is now a serious contender in terms of forming the basis of the post-Kyoto climate agreement that will, fingers crossed, be signed at Copenhagen in 2009."
So what is C&C all about? The underlying principles are simple and democratic: first, that greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced to ensure 'safe and stable' concentrations in the Earth's atmosphere; second, that the mechanism used to accomplish this must be fair to all, and should therefore be based upon the idea that every man, woman and child on the planet has the 'right' to emit an equal amount of greenhouse gas. The first stage would see all nations agreeing upon a stable atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
The advantages of this are manifold. It is scrupulously even-handed, complicated negotiations are not needed, every country would have a target, and the agreed levels for overall emissions can be linked to scientific criteria for preventing dangerous climate change. The mechanism also permits emissions trading so that developing countries unable to use up all their entitlements can sell these to industrialised countries desperate for more.
Just how much emissions in the industrial countries are going to have to come down can be seen from the fact that even one third of a tonne of carbon dioxide is almost 60 times less than the average American or Australian emits and more than 25 times smaller than the carbon footprint of the average Brit. On the other hand, it is 15 times higher than the carbon produced in a year by a citizen of Chad. Clearly, the big losers under C&C will be the richest countries and most wasteful emitters, while the winners will be poorer nations alongside those that embrace clean technologies and low-carbon lifestyles.
Dismissed by elements of the US government, by some UK civil servants, and by others, as thinly disguised communism, almost every day now brings further high-powered support for C&C. As long ago as 1995, the Indian government signed up to the framework, and two years later it was adopted by the Africa Group of Nations. Most surprising of all, just before walking out of the Kyoto climate negotiations in 1997, the US delegation conceded that C&C contained 'elements for the next agreement that we might ultimately all seek to engage in'; good news, perhaps, for Copenhagen in 2009. Other supporters include China, the European Parliament, the UN Environment Programme, and even the World Council of Churches. Most recently, and perhaps most significantly, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, also publicly backed C&C. In the UK, successive labour governments have been lukewarm, to say the least, but there is plenty of support elsewhere, including from the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and from 180 MPs who supported C&C in an early-day motion in parliament.
Whether or not C&C will form the basis of any post-Kyoto climate agreement remains to be seen, but there is certainly nothing else on the table that can hold a candle to it in terms of simplicity, elegance and downright even-handedness. I am sure that adoption of C&C by the international community would prove to be an almighty relief to Aubrey Meyer, who commented, in a recent Guardian interview, that he 'did not realise that it would take quite so long to change the world'.