Consumer responsibilities of carbon emissions in a post-Kyoto regime until 2020

COP17 in Durban revealed once again the general willingness to commit to the 2°-target and the difficulty to reach an international Post-Kyoto agreement until 2015. There is strong evidence from model-based analysis that economic costs of reaching the 2°-target will be below global GDP growth of one year. Any feasible solution has to address a fair sharing of mitigation responsibilities across the globe. This is explicitly considered in the research on the difference between production-based and consumption-based emissions. Using a multi-regional input-output model (MRIO) extended with carbon intensity coefficients, it is possible to calculate consumption-based carbon emissions. This paper combines two strands of research: It uses the results of a scenario analysis with the GINFORS model regarding mitigation efforts in line with the Copenhagen pledges for 2020 to then calculate the distribution of future consumption-based carbon emissions around the globe using the Global Resource Accounting Model (GRAM).GINFORS (Global INterindustry FORecasting System) is a dynamic macro-econometric input-output model that has been widely applied in analyzing national and international environmental and energy-related policy measures. GINFORS projections provide GDP development, energy balances and energy-related carbon emissions for 53 countries and two regions (Lutz et al., 2010). Sectoral production structures and trade data are available for all OECD countries, their major trading partners and the large emerging economies. The results of the scenario analysis in GINFORS are used to project the multi-regional input-output coefficient matrix and the corresponding final demand matrix as well as the energy-intensity coefficient vector of the MRIO model GRAM. GRAM is based on the same data as GINFORS and hence has the same sectoral and regional structure (Wiebe et al., 2012). Using GRAM we are able to calculate consumption-based carbon emissions of the given Post-Kyoto regime until 2020.Production-based carbon emissions will further increase in emerging economies, whereas OECD countries will have to reduce emissions according to their Copenhagen pledges. The results show that a consumption-based accounting of carbon emissions allocates more emissions to the industrialized countries than production-based accounting. However, the increasing final demand in the emerging economies may reduce net-exports and hence also the relative net-emissions embodied in these exports. Global responsibility for the lager part of carbon emissions will remain with the highly industrialized OECD countries. Still, the shift towards a higher responsibility of emerging economies is inevitable as these are growing faster (economy and population wise) and continue producing with more carbon-intensive technologies. References Lutz, C., Meyer, B. and Wolter, M.I. (2010). The Global Multisector/Multicountry 3E-Model GINFORS. A Description of the Model and a Baseline Forecast for Global Energy Demand and CO2 Emissions. International Journal of Global Environmental Issues, 10(1-2), pp. 25-45. Wiebe, K.S., Bruckner, M., Giljum, S. and Lutz, C. (2012). Calculating energy-related CO2 emissions embodied in international trade using a global input-output model. Economic Systems Research, forthcoming.