German scientists endorse a global climate bank.

• Author: Block, Ben
• Position: EYE ON EARTH

German government advisers have proposed a new approach to pay for global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions: a global climate bank. Under the proposal, the bank would regulate each country's allowable emissions quota and a global emissions trading system. Countries that exceed their "carbon budgets," based on 2010 populations, would be required to buy excess allowances from the world's least-developed countries via the bank.

The most important measurement of a climate agreement's success, the German Advisory Council on Global Change said, is whether global emissions can be limited to 750 billion tons of carbon dioxide total by 2050, the maximum allowable if warming is not to exceed 2 degrees C. The goal could be achieved by limiting industrialized countries' average annual per-capita emissions to 2.7 tons of carbon dioxide over the period, with annual per-capita emissions declining to 1 ton of carbon dioxide by 2050...