English Abstract In order to reduce the risks of a climate change, a
major problem in developing an effective international policy, is the
allocation of the responsibility for reducing greenhouse gas emissions among
regions. The report presents two approaches to provide for the allocation
problem of emission reductions of the most important greenhouse gas CO2.
The first deals with a description of the emission debt concept. We use an
equity rule by which all past and future dwellers on earth are permitted to
emit an equal CO2 quotum per year. Furthermore, the level of the equal
emission quotum is dependent on the policy related CO2-equivelant
concentration targets. The regional emission debt is the amount of CO2,
based on a equal share per capita, emitted in a region in the past exceeding
the amount allowed. The resulting initial allocation of emission rights may
be used as a start for a concept of tradable emission rights. In the second
approach the allocation problem is formulated as an optimization problem.
This contains an "optimal" trade off between rough estimates for cosial and
economic consequences of reducing fossil CO2-emissions in order to meet
policy targets, as expressed in a CO2-equivalent concentration level. The
optimization algorithm developed is a first attempt in solving the
optimization problem, where restictions are dependent on simulation runs
with IMAGE (an Intergrated Model to Assess the Greenhouse Effect). The
algorithm is used to find an allocation of regional fossil CO2-emissions in
order to maximize welfare of future generations, givin a maximum allowable
concentration level. Results of both approches indicate that if the world
community is to accept constraints on CO-emissions, industrialized regions
will have to take the main responsibility in reducing CO2-emissions either
by reducing emissions in their own regions and in developing
regions.
