A new post-Kyoto climate regime based on per-capita cumulative CO2-emission rights—rationale, architecture and quantitative assessment of the implication for the CO2-emissions from China, India and the Annex-I countries by 2050

Climate change is one of the most severe global problems in the 21st century. Main drivers are the combustion of fossil fuels, the emissions of industrial gases, emissions from agricultural sites and animal husbandry as well as deforestation. A new cooperative climate regime is necessary to meet the World’s energy and environmental problems against the background of China’s and India’s energy consumption growth. For the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol after 2012, a successor regime has to be agreed on. The current approaches, however, have a common weakness. They at the same time (a) do not acknowledge the historical responsibilities of the industrialized countries for the historical greenhouse gas emissions and the responsibility of developing countries for a large fraction of the current future emissions, and (b) do not provide for a fair distribution of emission rights. Against this background, this article aims at forecasting China’s and India's CO2-emissions up to 2050 and developing a new suggestion for a post Kyoto climate regime based on a cumulated per capita CO2-emission rights taking the weaknesses of the currently discussed post Kyoto approaches into account.