Small countries without significant vested interests dominating their relationship with other countries, such as Ireland, have a particular opportunity to contribute positively to the search for a resolution to climate change at an international/global level. In recent years Ireland funded work commissioned by UNEP from WRI to look at proposals, such as Cap and Share, originating outside the UNFCCC process. Unfortunately, that work did not get as far as intended in carrying out a peer review as originally proposed for that study.
The inadequacy of the commitments made at Durban further highlights the need for a different approach to resolving the global climate problem. In this submission, made on April 30 2013, we therefore urge the Government to follow up the UNEP study with further consideration of proposals and to explore all possibilities including those proposed in Sharing for Survival: Cap and Share as a framework for cutting emissions along with a Carbon Maintenance Fee as a means of protecting carbon stored in forests and increase the carbon content of soils.
We also urge the government to move away from its current reliance on short-term cost analyses such as Marginal Abatement Cost Curves when researching the economics of climate change policy. We consider scenario-based analyses such as that employed by the European Commission in its Roadmap for Moving to a Competitive Low Carbon Economy in 2050 to be far more appropriate in this context.
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Featured image: Puzzle Piece. Author: Penny Mathews. Source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/720808
