Editing IPCC:AR6/WGIII/Chapter-14 (section)

==== 14.3.2.3 NDCs, Fairness and Equity ====

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The Paris Agreement encourages Parties, while submitting their NDCs, to explain how these are ‘fair and ambitious’ ( [[#UNFCCC--2015a|UNFCCC 2015a]] , Art. 4.8 read with [[#UNFCCC--2016a|UNFCCC 2016a]] , para. 27). The Rulebook obliges Parties to provide information on ‘fairness considerations, including reflecting on equity’ as applicable to their NDC ( [[#Rajamani--2019|Rajamani and Bodansky 2019]] ; [[#UNFCCC--2019b|UNFCCC 2019b]] paras. 7a and 9, Annex, paras. 6(a) and (b)). Although equity within nations and between communities is also important, much of the literature on fairness and equity in the context of NDCs focuses on equity between nations.

In the first round of NDCs, most Parties declared their NDCs as fair ( [[#Robiou%20du%20Pont--2017|Robiou du Pont et al. 2017]] ). Their claims, however, were largely unsubstantiated or drawn from analysis by in-country experts ( [[#Winkler--2018|Winkler et al. 2018]] ). At least some of the indicators Parties have identified in their NDCs as justifying the ‘fairness’ of their contributions, such as a ‘small share of global emissions’, ‘cost-effectiveness’ and assumptions that privilege current emissions levels (‘grandfathering’) are not, according to one group of scholars, in accordance with principles of international environmental law ( [[#Rajamani--2021|Rajamani et al. 2021]] ). Moreover, the NDCs reveal long-standing institutional divisions and divergent climate priorities between Annex I and non-Annex I Parties, suggesting that equity and fairness concerns remain salient ( [[#Stephenson--2019|Stephenson et al. 2019]] ). Fairness concerns also affect the share of CDR responsibilities for major emitters if they delay near-term mitigation action ( [[#Fyson--2020|Fyson et al. 2020]] ).

It is challenging, however, to determine ‘fair shares’, and address fairness and equity in a world of voluntary climate contributions ( [[#Chan--2016a|Chan 2016a]] ), in particular, since these contributions are insufficient ( [[#14.3.2.2|Section 14.3.2.2]] .). Self-differentiation in contributions has also led to fairness and equity being discussed in terms of individual Nationally Determined Contributions rather than between categories of countries ( [[#Chan--2016a|Chan 2016a]] ). In the climate change regime, one option is for Parties to provide more rigorous information under the Paris Agreement to assess fair shares ( [[#Winkler--2018|Winkler et al. 2018]] ), and another is for Parties to articulate what equity principles they have adopted in determining their NDCs and how they have operationalised these principles, and to explain their mitigation targets in terms of the portion of the appropriated global carbon budget ( [[#Hales--2018|Hales and Mackey 2018]] ).

Equity is critical to addressing climate change, including through the Paris Agreement ( [[#Klinsky--2017|Klinsky et al. 2017]] ), however, since the political feasibility of developing equity principles within the climate change regime is low, the onus is on mechanisms and actors outside the regime to develop these ( [[#Lawrence--2019|Lawrence and Reder 2019]] ). Equity and fairness concerns are being raised in national and regional courts that are increasingly being asked to determine if the climate actions pledged by states are adequate in relation to their fair share ( [[#The%20Supreme%20Court%20of%20the%20Netherlands--2019|The Supreme Court of the Netherlands 2019]] ; [[#European%20Court%20of%20Human%20Rights--2020|European Court of Human Rights 2020]] ; German Constitutional Court 2021), as it is only in relation to such a ‘fair share’ that the adequacy of a state’s contribution can be assessed in the context of a global collective action problem ( [[IPCC:Wg3:Chapter:Chapter-13#13.5|Section 13.5]] .5). Some domestic courts have stressed that as climate change is a global problem of cumulative impact, all emissions contribute to the problem regardless of their relative size and there is a clear articulation under the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement for developed countries to ‘take the lead’ in addressing GHG emissions ( [[#Preston--2020|Preston 2020]] ). Given the limited avenues for multilateral determination of fairness, several researchers have argued that the onus is on the scientific community to generate methods to assess fairness ( [[#Herrala--2016|Herrala and Goel 2016]] ; [[#Lawrence--2019|Lawrence and Reder 2019]] ). Peer-to-peer comparisons also potentially create pressure for ambitious NDCs ( [[#Aldy--2017|Aldy et al. 2017]] ).

There are a range of options to assess or introduce fairness. These include: adopting differentiation in financing rather than in mitigation ( [[#Gajevic%20Sayegh--2017|Gajevic Sayegh 2017]] ); adopting a carbon budget approach ( [[#Hales--2018|Hales and Mackey 2018]] ; [[#Alcaraz--2019|Alcaraz et al. 2019]] ), which may occur through the transparency processes ( [[#Hales--2018|Hales and Mackey 2018]] ); quantifying national emissions allocations using different equity approaches, including those reconciling finance and emissions rights distributions ( [[#Robiou%20du%20Pont--2017|Robiou du Pont et al. 2017]] ); combining equity concepts in a bottom-up manner using different sovereign approaches ( [[#Robiou%20du%20Pont--2018|Robiou du Pont and Meinshausen 2018]] ), using data on adopted emissions targets to find an ethical framework consistent with the observed distribution ( [[#Sheriff--2019|Sheriff 2019]] ); adopting common metrics for policy assessment ( [[#Bretschger--2017|Bretschger 2017]] ); and developing a template for organising metrics on mitigation effort – emissions reductions, implicit prices, and costs – for both ''ex-ante'' and ''ex-post'' review ( [[#Aldy--2017|Aldy et al. 2017]] ). The burden of agricultural mitigation can also be distributed using different approaches from effort sharing (responsibility, capability, need, equal cumulative per-capita emissions) ( [[#Richards--2018|Richards et al. 2018]] ). Further, there are temporal (inter-generational) and spatial (inter-regional) dimensions to the distribution of the mitigation burden, with additional emissions reductions in 2030 improving both inter-generational and inter-regional equity ( [[#Liu--2016|Liu et al. 2016]] ). Some of the equity approaches rely on ‘grandfathering’ as an allocation principle, which some argue has led to ‘cascading biases’ against developing countries ( [[#Kartha--2018|Kartha et al. 2018]] ), and is morally ‘perverse’ ( [[#Caney--2011|Caney 2011]] ). While no country’s NDC explicitly supports the grandfathering approach, many countries describe as ‘fair and ambitious’ NDCs that assume grandfathering as the starting point ( [[#Robiou%20du%20Pont--2017|Robiou du Pont et al. 2017]] ). It is worth noting that the existence of multiple metrics associated with a range of equity approaches has implications for how the ambition and ‘fair’ share of each state is arrived at; some average out multiple approaches and indicators ( [[#Hof--2012|Hof et al. 2012]] ; Meinshausen et al. 2015; [[#Robiou%20du%20Pont--2018|Robiou du Pont and Meinshausen 2018]] ), others exclude indicators and approaches that do not, in their interpretation, accord with principles of international environmental law ( [[#Rajamani--2021|Rajamani et al. 2021]] ). One group of scholars has suggested that utilitarianism offers an ‘ethically minimal and conceptually parsimonious’ benchmark that promotes equity, climate and development ( [[#Budolfson--2021|Budolfson et al. 2021]] ).

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