At COP 28, a fair share of the global carbon budget is at stake | Explained Premium

There is a linear relationship between global warming and CO2 emissions. The carbon budget is a global resource available to all countries to limit warming to below a certain temperature, and developed countries have appropriated a larger share of this budget. India must recognise 'fair share of carbon budget' as strategic resource and demand its fair share of the carbon budget at COP28. To this end, it must receive finance and technologies from the developed countries.

There is an almost linear relationship between global warming and cumulative carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992 noted that per capita emissions in developing countries are still “relatively low” and that their share in the global emissions will grow to meet their social and developmental needs.

The Convention recognises the ‘common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities’ (CBDR-RC) principle. This means different States have different responsibilities and respective capabilities in tackling climate change. This principle has been reaffirmed in the Paris Agreement, whose main aim is to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels’‘ and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels”.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report (IPCC AR6), every 1,000 billion tonnes of CO2 in emissions causes an estimated 0.45 degrees C rise in the global surface temperature. Axiomatically, limiting the rise in global temperature to a specific level means limiting cumulative carbon dioxide emission to within a carbon budget.

The term ‘global carbon budget’ refers to the maximum cumulative global anthropogenic CO2 emissions – from the pre-industrial era to when such emissions reach net- zero, resulting in limiting global warming to a given level with a given probability. The remaining carbon budget indicates how much CO2 could still be emitted, from a specified time after the pre-industrial period, while keeping temperature rise to the specified limit.

The IPCC AR6 has shown that the world warmed by a staggering 1.07 degrees C until 2019 from pre-industrial levels, so almost four-fifths of the global carbon budget stands depleted. Only a fifth remains to meet the target set in the Paris Agreement.

For a 50% chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C, the U.S. would have to reach net-zero in 2025, rather than 2050; Germany by 2030 instead of 2045; and the EU-28 bloc by 2031 instead of 2050.

According to the IPCC AR6, the developed countries have appropriated a disproportionately larger share of the global carbon budget to date. The contribution of South Asia – which includes India – to historical cumulative emissions is only around 4% despite having almost 24% of the entire world population. The per capita CO2-FFI (fossil fuel and industry) emissions of South Asia was just 1.7 tonnes CO2-equivalent per capita, far below North America (15.4 tonnes CO2-eq. per capita) and also significantly lower than the world average (6.6 tonnes CO2-eq. per capita).