The right to development in a climate constrained world: The Greenhouse Development Rights framework

Abstract

This book presents the Greenhouse Development Rights (GDRs) framework, which is designed to support an emergency climate stabilization programme while, at the same time, preserving the right of all people to reach a dignified level of sustainable human development free of the privations of poverty. The GDRs framework defines an emergency climate stabilization pathway, then quantifies national responsibility and capacity to act, and finally calculates national obligations to pay the costs of both an emergency mitigation programme and strenuous adaptation efforts. It does this for all countries, and in a manner that takes income disparities within nations into explicit account. By so doing, it seeks to secure for the world's poor the environmental space and resources needed for low-carbon development