TWO STORIES:
The U.S. Climate Fair Share Position Statement
The US Climate Action Network believes that the US fair share of the global mitigation effort in 2030 is equivalent to a reduction of 195% below its 2005 emissions levels, reflecting a fair share range of 173-229%. This analysis has been done in terms of the 1.5°C temperature limit. This objective is extremely demanding, but as the IPCC made clear in Global Warming of 1.5°C, more than 1.5°C degrees of warming would yield immeasurable suffering and destruction (and impacts will be severe even at 1.5). It is crucial to recognize the basic truth of our predicament: 1.5°C can only be reached within an emergency global mobilization, which can only come together if it prioritizes justice just as much as ambition. This effort to quantify “The US Climate Fair Share” is a collective effort by the US Climate Action Network (USCAN), which includes a range of organizations from state and locally focused grassroots groups to international NGOs, to center the dual challenges of global climate change and global inequality, and to ensure that US climate action is appropriately considered in this context.
By U.S. Climate Action Network. December 2, 2020.
Bill McKibben: The Climate Debt the U.S. Owes the World
The U.S. can’t meet its moral and practical burdens simply by reducing its own emissions; the country already put so much carbon into the air (and hence reduced the space that should rightly go to others) that it needs to make amends. Tom Athanasiou, at a California-based nonprofit called EcoEquity, and his colleagues at the Climate Equity Reference Project find that seventy per cent would be made domestically, the other 125%—would come by way of financial and tech support for adaptation and rapid decarbonization in poor and developing countries. A country like Honduras has not used anything like its fair share of the planet’s carbon budget. By decarbonizing, it will be doing far more than its fair share—and it won’t be able to, unless countries like the United States help foot the bill.
By Bill McKibben. The New Yorker. December 2, 2020.
