Capacities for mitigating climate change in China, India and Brazil

Project description

China, India and Brazil are the largest emitters of greenhouse gases from the developing world, and in some sectors these countries are already economic rivals of the industrialised countries. Against this background, two concerns are growing in Europe: First, economic actors fear that these three countries may derive additional economic advantages from the fact that they have not made any formal emission reduction commitments, a state of affairs that may enable them to gain additional economic advantages. And second, environmental actors are concerned that it will be impossible to limit global warming within a manageable range without emission reductions from China, India, and Brazil, even if the industrialised countries should prove successful in achieving substantial reductions.
The industrialised countries bear the major share of historical responsibility for the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and they still account for 40 percent of global emissions, although their share is expected to decrease drastically in relative terms within the coming 10 to 15 years. In 2007 China had already become the world’s largest emitter, followed by the United States. India has already advanced to rank four, and Brazil now ranks eighth.

The question our project asks is what capacities China, India, and Brazil have developed to mitigate climate change, i.e. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and to what extent these capacities have been utilized to influence the sectoral policies responsible for generating most greenhouse gas emissions. We also observe individual sectors in this connection (e.g. buildings).

The present international climate regime offers few incentives to induce China, India, and Brazil to switch to a low-carbon development path (economy). All three countries have repeatedly raised objections to any quantified reduction commitments under a post-2012 climate regime. Still, we do find, at the national level, a number of approaches that at once have climate-relevant impacts and accord well with national interests.