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3 Int'l Env't Agreements: Pol. L. & Econs. 1 (2003)

handle is hein.journals/intenve3 and id is 1 raw text is: International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics 3: 1-16, 2003. Y 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. Emissions Rights and their Transferability Equity Concerns over Climate Change Mitigation1 JIAHUA PAN2 Accepted 3 December 2001 Abstract. Existing literature on equity considerations for climate change mitigation has largely focused on fair burden-sharing at an inter-national level without adequate attention to equity concerns at the intra-national level. However, disparities between regions and income groups within nations pose perhaps more equity concerns over climate change mitigation than those between nations. While international equity can be agreed upon via political negotiation among nations, the poor in both developed and developing countries may not be guaranteed their fair allocation of emissions rights because the necessary institutional framework has yet to be established at both international and national levels. This paper distinguishes three parts of emissions rights and discusses their transferability in view of equity concerns. The author suggests that basic necessity emissions rights are not transferable and non-necessity emissions are fully marketable, while individual contribu- tions to state are subject to collective decision-making or political manipulation at the international level. The exact share of each of the three parts is subject to further investigation, but unlimited free trading of emissions rights is likely to result in equity concerns at both inter- and intra-national levels. Further examination in quantitative terms would represent an interesting case study for a better understanding of the issue. Key words: climate change mitigation, emissions rights, inter- and intra-rational equity 1. Introduction Equity is neither the cause of climate change, nor the ultimate objective of climate policies. The real concern is the impact of climate change and policies on equity. Since equity has to be assessed relating to justifiable entitlement by parties and/or individuals involved, rights concerning the use of the atmospheric resources con- stitute the key to understanding the question. Although all living organisms are entitled to the use of natural resources (see, for example, Taylor, 1986), climate change related discussion on equity has largely focused on the impact on human welfare, in particular the fairness of resource allocation and burden-sharing across nations (e.g. IPCC, 1996; Metz et al., 2001). The terms justice and fairness can have different meanings (Albin, 1995), though in most literature, they are normally used synonymsly. In general, the former means distributive justice, in the sense of general standards for allocating col- lective benefits and burdens among the members of a community at a local,

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