Countries' historical responsibility for climate change

This paper analyses the impact of scientific uncertainties and of policy choices on the contribution of countries’ historical responsibility for climate change. This approach has been suggested in the climate negotiations as a key for allocating the greenhouse gas emission reductions amongst countries (‘Brazilian Proposal’), and it is also suggested as being useful for assigning financial contributions to an adaptation fund for to climate change. Applying this approach with the historical emissions over the period 1890-2000 for the countries’ allocation of emission reduction leads to high emission reductions for Annex I regions by 2050, in particular for Europe and Japan.