Princeton Plan

A proposal for determining caps on international carbon emissions.

Discussing India’s continued refusal to agree to U.S. demands to set CO2 emission caps, Paul Beckett wrote in the WSJ:

The battle lines between India and the U.S. on climate change seem to be clearly drawn ahead of December’s key summit in Copenhagen that will try to craft a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. …

Jairam Ramesh, India’s minister of state for environment and forests, publicly keeps unleashing the battle cry. After meeting in Gurgaon with a U.S. delegation during Secretary of State Clinton’s recent visit, he distributed a prepared statement that read in part: “There is simply no case for the pressure that we, who have among the lowest emissions per capita, face to actually reduce emissions. And as if this pressure was not enough, we also face the threat of carbon tariffs on our exports to countries such as yours.”

Beckett noted the collapse of trade talks in Doha, and argued:

There’s likely little appetite for a repeat in Copenhagen. Instead, there may be a preference for the world’s largest developed democracy and the world’s largest developing democracy to conclude some deal.

Perhaps it could involve the so-called Princeton Plan, a formula put together by leading academics that would identify the one billion most emissions-inefficient people worldwide and cap a country’s emissions based on how many offenders it had within its borders. Or some other formulation that lets each claim victory and an agreement to be struck.

The Princeton Plan, proposed in July, was said to be a more equitable way of determining international carbon caps. Indeed, according to Reuters, the creators of the Princeton Plan do “not stop at capping emissions for and based on the most polluting 1 billion”:

They also seek to help the poor of the world as well, “addressing poverty alleviation and carbon emission reductions simultaneously.” Their plan, basically, is to exempt the poorest 1/3 of the world population from emission caps, and allow them to use fossil fuels to gradually elevate their standard of living.