The global carbon budget: a conflicting claims problem

An effective climate agreement is urgently required, yet conflict between parties prevails over cooperation. Thanks to advances in science it is now possible to quantify the global carbon budget, the amount of available cumulative CO2 emissions before crossing the 2 ∘C threshold (Meinshausen et al. Nature 458(7242):1158–1162, 2009). Countries carbon claims, however, exceed this. Historically such situations have been tackled with bankruptcy division rules. We argue that framing climate negotiations as a classical conflicting claims problem (O’Neill Math Soc Sci 2(4):345–371, 1982) may provide for an effective climate policy. We analyze the allocation of the global carbon budget among parties claiming the maximum emissions rights possible. Based on the selection of some desirable principles, we propose an efficient and sustainable allocation of the available carbon budget for the period 2000 to 2050 taking into account different risk scenarios.