What is Fair?

This chapter discusses fairness, which intuitively is presented as equal sharing by countries in the carbon budget. However, this could be problematic, because if each country is required to have an equal level of emissions per capita, costs could be higher than they otherwise would be, and equal sharing per capita may not be fair based on historical emissions or a country’s capability to mitigate emissions. There is also a disparity between the basis of geography of production and the basis of end use of industrial production which complicates the question of fairness of responsibility. Many developing countries claim a right to develop. There should be a fairness in the spirit of global cooperation in which we al benefit, including companies and poor countries. Part of fairness, as defined at COP19 in Warsaw, is compensation for losses and damages. This video is part of the module The Main Challenges of Climate Change Negotiations. This video is not available under a Creative Commons license and should not be considered open content. However, the video is freely available for viewing or sharing with individuals or groups for educational purposes, such as in a classroom, workshop, or training. Please give attribution to the SDG Academy. Content may not be used for commercial purposes.

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