This panel examines the unresolved tension between historical responsibility and contemporary climate action through quantitative frameworks for national contributions to atmospheric COâ‚‚ accumulation, temperature rise, and sea-level impacts. We explore how systemic burden-shifting transfers mitigation obligations from historical emitters to removal-contributing nations despite minimal responsibility.
Papers should address:
1. Accountability Metrics: Methodologies for attributing climate debt across timeframes, including impulse-response modeling of cumulative emissions and ethical implications of excluding terrestrial/oceanic removal contributions.
2. Institutional Inertia: How governance mechanisms perpetuate inequity by transferring adaptation and mitigation burdens to developing regions. Case studies on how the Paris Agreement's inadvertent inaction perpetuates inequity by transferring mitigation burdens to developing nations despite minimal historical responsibility, as evidenced by G7 vs. BRICS responsibility differentials.
3. Cooling Governance: Policy frameworks for recognizing and incentivizing responsible COâ‚‚ removals through terrestrial, oceanic, and technological pathways.
4. Epistemic Justice: Data asymmetries and negotiation dynamics obscuring historical accountability in global climate processes; negotiated "cacophony" in UNFCCC processes; Global South participation barriers in climate diplomacy.
We welcome contributions that:
• Apply responsibility indices to climate finance mechanisms
• Analyze nationalist narratives reframing mitigation burdens
• Propose institutional reforms for differentiated responsibility implementation
• Evaluate legal pathways for climate obligations
• Critical policy angles: CBDR, ICJ advisory, G20 and major Emitters participation, epistemic justice
The panel bridges RC52 (climate security implications of unaddressed historical debt) and RC47 (local-global tensions in burden allocation), offering evidence-based approaches to transform governance from burden-shifting to equitable responsibility-sharing.
