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governments to determine how differentiation will be captured, if at all.Indeed, any new climate change agreement will needif it is to haveany chance of entry into forceto address the principle of common butdifferentiated responsibility and respective capabilities.

Developing countries need to re-visit their insistence on the CBDR(common but differentiated responsibilities) principle as the policydriver, because it does not exist in this form. This was the last principlereluctantly agreed in the negotiations on the Rio Declaration in 1992only because it was reproduced from a communique of Ministers ofEnvironment of the OECD, and the United States recorded a reservation.A compromise was arrived at in the Climate Treaty in 1992, anddeveloping countries agreed to the addition of the words andrespective capabilities. The result is that international environmentallaw continues to struggle with the on-going debates over whetherdeveloping countries should reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and,

if so, how much financial support developed countries should provide forsuch efforts.

Developing countries, In light of their growing economic weight and theiremissions are now in a position to set the agenda, and should do so atthe Bonn meeting.

The new global regimeThere are two widely different ways of considering the way climatenegotiations review the challenges ahead around the use of natural

resources. The environmental case is based on impact of climate changeon the natural ecosystems, and the assertion that the stabilization leveland timeframe for peaking of emissions is the most important globalpolicy issue. The sustainable development case is based on the globalcommons as an economic resource requires that stabilization ofconcentrations of greenhouse gases to ensure that developed countriesdo not use up all the carbon space at the cost of developing countries.

Both views of the climate challenge are legitimate. The scientific basisfor climate change can be made either in terms of reducing emissionsand environmental damage (natural science) or sharing the global

environmental resource for sustainable development (social science),but with very different implications for countries, because damage ismeasured in terms of additional flows and points the finger atdeveloping countries, while limits on ecosystem services is measured interms of sharing total stocks of greenhouse gases and requiresdeveloped countries to take substantial measures. Global climate policyis a zero-sum game, if technology is not factored into the equation.

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Humans have always altered their local environment; withindustrialization, urbanization, motorization and increase in incomesthey have begun to alter the Planet. According to recent analyses, in thiscontext, what really matters is the total greenhouse gas budget we

allow ourselves, because of the scientific uncertainty associated withemission rates and concentration targets*, which cannot be accuratelyinferred from quantities we can observe. For example, differentiationshould be based on stages of development rather than historicalresponsibility for environmental damage and would meet one of the keyconcerns of industrialized countries that commitments should besymmetrical.Consequently, instead of reliance on the CBDR developing countriesshould pose the moral question if sustainability cannot be achievedthrough technological efficiency, how much of the worlds resourcesdoes any one nation or individual have a right to for their well-being?

Differentiation, based on stages of development rather than historicalresponsibility for environmental damage, is important because a keyrole will need to be played by all governments as the transformationcannot be left to market forces. Global ecosystem services are both aglobal good and are not priced by the market, and policy is responsiblefor the creation of markets for new technologies like wind and solarenergy. Governments also play a major role in initiating research on newtechnologies, because they serve a wider good and the benefits accrueto society. In responding to a problem that is global in nature and scale,ways have to be found to deal with the distributional challenge, as the

costs will fall more heavily on developing countries because of their lowlevels of income, for example, intellectual property rights also have aglobal goods dimension.

International cooperation to achieve human wellbeing of all by 2050should be based around a new principle of shared prosperity andresponsibility. The global rule based system would annually reviewprogress in three areas - reaching multilaterally agreed national carbonbudgets, development and sharing of innovative renewable energy andagricultural biotechnologies, and bringing energy services and adequatefood to those in developing countries who do not have adequate access

to them at present.

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