Here’s the chapter and verse from the German Chancellery website:
According to Merkel’s proposal, CO2 emissions would be measured per capita. The maximum COs emissions of a country would thus be measured in terms of population numbers. The larger the population of a country, the more CO2 the country would be permitted to emit. This would mean that every individual in the world would be entitled to emit the same volume of carbon dioxide.
In her proposal, Merkel presupposes that the industrialised countries cut their share of energy consumption as far as possible, thus reducing per capita emissions of carbon dioxide.
The emerging economies, on the other hand, need to grow if they are to reduce poverty. The downside is, of course, that their emissions of CO2 will continue to rise in the years to come. In the final analysis the per capita emissions in emerging economies will meet those of industrialised countries.
If the agreement is to be just, one thing must be clear, however, stressed the Chancellor, “I cannot imagine that the emerging economies will one day be permitted to emit more CO2 per capita than we in the industrialised countries”.
If the emerging economies were to accept this proposal, they would face the task of braking the rise in their CO2 emissions. This is possible with “intelligent growth”, explained Merkel thinking of the most modern of environmental technologies – many of which come from Germany.
With Merkel’s proposal, the emerging nations with rapidly expanding economies could be brought on board the global climate negotiations scheduled for 2009.
This is a big deal.
