research
"Compensations and contributions under an international carbon treaty"
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Abstract
The simulations in this paper use actual 2004 data on carbon emissions and per capita GDP from 178 countries to provide a rough estimate of how much better off high-income countries might be by compensating low-income countries to help reduce carbon emissions rather than doing it without their help; and a rough estimate of the per capita compensation to each low-income country and the per capita contribution from each high-income country under several alternative formulas that might be adopted under an international carbon treaty. The study focuses special attention on the per capita compensations to India, China, and Russia, and the per capita contributions from the United States, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, and France, under alternative formulas. In our initial simulation, if the 46 countries with per capita GDP above 12,000wanttoreduceworldemissionsby1.095billionmetrictons(15108 billion if they do it without help. But if they get optimal help from the 132 low-income countries, the total cost of reducing world emissions 1.095 billion would be only 55billion−−27 billion for the low-income countries and 28billionforthehigh−incomecountries−−sotheworldcostsavingwouldbe53 billion and the cost saving for the high-income countries would be 80billion.Thus,ifthehigh−incomecountriescompensatethelow−incomecountries10027 billion), the high-income countries would still be 53billionbetteroffthaniftheyhaddoneitalone.Undertheformulausedinthisinitialsimulation,China’spercapitacompensationwouldbe7 and the U.S.’s per capita contribution would be $40.International Carbon Treaty