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Safe vs. Fair: A Formidable Trade-off in Tackling Climate Change

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  • Tavoni, Massimo
  • Chakravarty, Shoibal
  • Socolow, Robert

Abstract

Global warming requires a response characterized by forward-looking management of atmospheric carbon and respect for ethical principles. Both safety and fairness must be pursued, and there are severe trade-offs as these are intertwined by the limited headroom for additional atmospheric CO2 emissions. This paper provides a simple numerical mapping at the aggregated level of developed vs. developing countries in which safety and fairness are formulated in terms of cumulative emissions and cumulative per capita emissions respectively. It becomes evident that safety and fairness cannot be achieved simultaneously for strict definitions of both. The paper further posits potential global trading in future cumulative emissions budgets in a world where financial transactions compensate for physical emissions: the safe vs. fair trade-off is less severe but remains formidable. Finally, we explore very large deployments of engineered carbon sinks and show that roughly 1000 GtCO2 of cumulative negative emissions over the century are required to have a significant effect, a remarkable scale of deployment. We also identify the unexplored issue of how such sinks might be treated in sub-global carbon accounting.

Suggested Citation

  • Tavoni, Massimo & Chakravarty, Shoibal & Socolow, Robert, 2011. "Safe vs. Fair: A Formidable Trade-off in Tackling Climate Change," Climate Change and Sustainable Development 115818, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:feemcl:115818
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.115818
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    Cited by:

    1. Yu-Jia Ding & Pi-Chu Wu & Yu-Hui Lian, 2020. "Time Series Analysis for the Dynamic Relationship between an Enterprise’s Business Growth and Carbon Emission in Taiwan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-12, July.
    2. Carlo Carraro & Emanuele Massetti, 2012. "Beyond Copenhagen: a realistic climate policy in a fragmented world," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 110(3), pages 523-542, February.
    3. Massetti, Emanuele & Tavoni, Massimo, 2012. "A developing Asia emission trading scheme (Asia ETS)," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(S3), pages 436-443.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Environmental Economics and Policy;

    JEL classification:

    • Q01 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General - - - Sustainable Development
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth

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