Getting serious about categorizing countries

Permanent Link:: http://dpanther.fiu.edu/dpService/dpPurlService/purl/FI15042533/00001

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Abstract:: A central finding of WGIII is that growth of income has been the largest single driver of emissions. Governments accepted that finding at the global level, where it is safe to discuss generalities because no country is in the spotlight. But WGIII also showed how different categories of countries contribute to global emissions (charts 1 to 3). We explain what was lost when these figures were cut from the SPM. Since the industrial revolution, today's highly industrialized countries have been the main contributors to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (chart 1). But over the past decade, their emissions have been roughly flat, whereas emissions from upper-middle-income countries (UMCs) have risen rapidly (chart 2A). The central implication is that inter-national climate policy needs to update how it categorizes countries. In the early 1990s when the UNFCCC was created, countries were divided into two categories—industrialized nations (Annex I), and the rest (non–Annex I). As non–Annex I countries' emissions have soared, their participation in future climate agreements is essential.

Source Institution:: Florida International University
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