In my last month’s column, I had focused on the rising threat of climate change and the serious shortfalls in the promise of commitments under the Paris Agreement of 2015. I had argued for an acceleration of commitments, particularly by developed countries. In this column, I try and elaborate on what the 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30), to be held in Brazil this November, can do to secure agreement on the principles that should drive faster global cooperation and national action.

In my view, the most important principle that should be reasserted is the notion of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR). This was agreed in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which was negotiated in the early 1990s and came into force after sufficient ratification in 1995. At that time, the differentiation of commitments was between Annex 1 countries, which were members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the Economies in Transition (EIT) in Eastern and Central Europe and the rest of the countries, which were placed in the Non-Annex 1 category. At that time, these two were seen as developed and developing countries and the commitments of emission reduction negotiated in the Kyoto Protocol applied only to the Annex 1 countries.

The group of Non-Annex I countries can no longer be fully identified with the developing states, as 20 Non-Annex I countries are now included in the World Bank’s list of high-income countries. However, the counter-argument to CBDR has focused more on the growth of emissions in China, which rose sharply from 2.9 tCO2 per capita in 1995 to 8.4 tCO2 per capita in 2023. This has led to the virtual elimination of the common but differentiated responsibility between developed and developing countries.

The public ranking of countries in climate change presentations is based on the volume of current emissions, ignoring the difference in cumulative emissions, which is the true basis for determining responsibility. But countries differ greatly in size and the number of people who are citizens. That is why the evaluation of impact on global climate change must compare the per capita emissions of each country, not the total amount. To ask India to accelerate its emission rates because its CO2 emission in 2023 was about 8 per cent of global emissions ignores the fact that its per capita emissions were less than half the global average. Total annual emissions are the basis of concerns raised, not just by European governments but also by several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the West. This is wrong. Any meaningful assessment of the strength of emission reduction for each country should be based on per capita emissions, not total emissions.