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This WRI brief challenges the popular argument that current negotiations to strengthen the international climate treaty would require industrialized nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while developing countries do nothing. A few examples of developing country actions:
- Brazil, India, and Mexico have launched specific energy efficiency and renewable energy programs, ranging from new energy efficiency standards to subsidies for the development of renewable energy.
- Reduced fossil fuel subsidies in 14 developing countries that account for 25 percent of global carbon emissions from industrial sources have led to higher fuel prices and lower rates of growth in carbon emissions.
- If China hadn’t taken steps in the 1980s to raise fuel prices and promote efficiency, the country’s 1990 emissions of carbon would have been more than 20 percent higher.
As Congressional interest in climate change issues increases, fairness and forthrightness are critical to the debate. Developing countries are already taking significant steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, since the signing of the climate treaty, developing countries may have achieved greater carbon dioxide savings, relative to their projected emissions, than the industrialized nations, which account for more than two-thirds of annual carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. However, with developing country emissions projected to exceed those of industrialized countries in the next 25 years, developing countries will eventually need to reduce the rate of growth and, ultimately, the level of their emissions.
“Given that developing countries are aggressively pursuing these options while industrialized countries will fail to meet their voluntary targets makes one question whether industrialized nations are leaders or laggards in mitigating climate change,” Drs. Goldemberg and Reid state.
