ARTICLE IN PRESS

.
Energy Policy 32 (2004) 14991510

Comments on the Brazilian Proposal and contributions to global

temperature increase with different climate responsesCO2 emissions
due to fossil fuels, CO2 emissions due to land use change
Luiz Pinguelli Rosa*, Suzana Kahn Ribeiro, Maria Silvia Muylaert,
Christiano Pires de Campos
IVIG/COPPE/UFRJInternational Virtual Institute of Global Change of the Coordination of Post Graduation Programs in Engineering of the Federal
University of Rio de Janeiro, Bloco 1-Sala 129 Cidade Universitaria, Caixa Postal 68.501, CEP 21.945-970 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Abstract
This paper addresses the question of how to take into account the anthropogenic contribution to the increase of global
temperature, instead of being restricted to the Carbon emissions adopted in the Kyoto Protocol on responsibility sharing. It is
shown the sensibility of the results to the variation of the parameters from different authors used for simulating the climate response
based in the so-called Brazilian Proposal (BP).
It is also discussed the methodological and scientic aspects of the BP being discussed by an expert group coordinated by SBSTA/
UNFCCC and results of energy sector and land use change contributions by groups of countries.
r 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Brazilian Proposal; GHG historical emissions; Climate change

1. Introduction
There is a current theoretical discussion motivated by
the Brazilian Proposal (BP) to the sharing of different
nations responsibilities in climate policy, based on
contributions to climate change instead of proposals
currently based on annual emissions (Brazilian Proposal, 1997). The original Brazilian model has been
modied (Meira and Miguez, 1998) to answer former
criticism, mainly in the evaluation of the contributions
to global temperature increase. After the revised version,
there were four important events related to the theme:
an informal expert meeting during the Buenos Aires
Conference of the Parties [COP-4], the expert meetings
held in: (i) Cachoeira Paulista, Brazil, May 1999,
(ii) Bonn, Germany, May 2001, and (iii) Bracknell,
UK, September 2002. Some specic points, raised in
those meetings, are commented in the present paper.
*Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +55-21-2270-1586.
E-mail addresses: pr@eletrobras.gov.br (L.P. Rosa),
skr@pet.coppe.ufrj.br (S.K. Ribeiro), msmuylaert@ivig.coppe.ufrj.br
(M.S. Muylaert), ch.campos@uol.com.br (C. Pires de Campos).
URL: www.ivig.coppe.ufri.br.
0301-4215/04/$ - see front matter r 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0301-4215(03)00121-6

According to the example of the BP, the past

contributions from developed countries represent about
84% of energy system emissions. During the preparation
of a proposal for the Third Conference of Parties in
Kyoto (1997), in a meeting at the time of the Rio Plus
Five Conference (1997), we have exchanged ideas with
the Brazilian Government team. It was concerned the
question of how to take into account the contribution
from different countries or groups of countries to the
increase of global temperature, instead of being restricted to their Carbon emissions in the current debate
on responsibility sharing. A part of the ongoing process,
there were further discussions on those points. Our
former results were presented in three occasions before
the Kyoto Conference: in the Conference on AIJ
(Activities Implemented Jointly) at New Delhi in
January 1997, during the Rio Plus Five Conference in
May 1997 and in the International Energy Agency
(IEA) Conference on GHG in Vancouver in June 1997,
published in their proceedings (Rosa, 1997; Ribeiro and
Rosa, 1997; Rosa and Ribeiro, 1997). In those previous
works, we have developed a simple model to calculate
the relative contributions to temperature increase from
GHG emissions. It works well for simulations of

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L.P. Rosa et al. / Energy Policy 32 (2004) 14991510

1500

different scenarios to give a feeling for the problem on a

clear and transparent basis. Our approach provides a
very transparent and simple way to compute the
contributions to global warming effect of historical,
present and future emissions, by tting the results of
complex models to simple analytical formulae with
few parameters (Rosa and Ribeiro, 2001). Our
method differs from that used in the BP because we
use analytical formulae instead of doing numerical
integration.
The limitation of precision of such an approximation,
due to neglecting non-linearity, is discussed in the
present paper. Data, especially on land use change and
rewood emissions as well as usual economy scenarios
for future emissions have higher uncertainty. Nevertheless, estimates of such data are used as input in
complex models to compute CO2 atmospheric concentration and global temperature increase. In the present

175

work, we use available data of CO2 emissions due to

fossil fuels and we use data calculated in our research
(IVIG, 2002) due to land use change.
The BP in Kyoto is resumed in Section 1, the current
debate on the BP is discussed in Section 2, where we
comment the main questions pointed out by critics.
Section 3 introduces the important issue of climate
response, one of the most relevants in the debate on
the BP.
Section 4 presents the global contribution to CO2
(from energy sector) atmospheric concentration with
different approximations and Parameters (Figs. 1 and
2). Section 4 also presents a simple and transparent
approximation used for fast calculation of global
contributions (Fig. 3) to the climate change (based on
CO2 emissions from energy sector, estimated by the
revised BP), taking into account different parameters for
the climate response.

~(1)

150

^(2)

125
100
75
50
25
0

1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Year

Fig. 1. Total contribution to CO2 (from energy sector) atmospheric concentration in approximations (1) and (2) with parameters (1) of Table 4.

250
200
150

^(1)
^(2)
^(3)

100
50
0
1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
Year

Fig. 2. Total contribution to CO2 (from energy sector) atmospheric concentration in approximation (1) with parameters (1), (2) and (3) of Table 4.

3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0

^(1)
^(2)
^(3)
^(4)

Year

Fig. 3. Total CO2 (from energy sector) contribution to climate change with parameters (1), (2), (3) and (4) of Table 5 (adopting parameters of column
(1) of Table 4).

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These informations are organized in groups of

countries. The CO2 contribution from the energy sector
is presented divided in Annex I and Non-Annex I
countries (Fig. 4). The CO2 contribution from land use
change is presented (Fig. 5) in groups of countries
organized by OECD, Africa, Asia, Latin America.
Besides, it is shown (Fig. 6) the result of both
contributions, from the energy sector and the land use
change computed together, presented for Annex I and
Non-Annex I countries.

It is also showed, in Section 4, an exercise of

the contribution to climate change using the parameters
of the revised BP for climate response (column (1)
of Table 5), due to historical fossil fuel and land
use change emissions based on new databases. The
database for fossil fuel emissions has been taken
from the US Oak Ridge National Laboratory, for the
period 17501990 and the database for land use change
(17001990) was established by our research (IVIG,
2002).

GW (Gt C.year)

2500

Annex I

2000
1500
1000
500

1985

1972

1959

1946

1933

1920

1907

1894

1881

1868

1855

1842

1829

1816

1803

1790

1777

1764

1751

Non-Annex I

1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0

OECD

Asia

1989

1972

1955

1938

1921

1904

1887

1870

1853

1836

1819

1802

1785

1768

Latin America
Africa

1751

GW (Gt C.year)

Fig. 4. Contribution to climate change of CO2 emissions due to energy sector and cement production from 1751 to 1998 (Source: IVIG, 2002).

Fig. 5. Contribution to global warming of CO2 emissions due to land use change from 1751 to 1990 (Source: IVIG, 2002).

4000

Annex I

GW (Gt C.year)

3500
3000
2500

Non-Annex I

2000
1500
1000
500
1971

1951

1931

1911

1891

1871

1851

1831

1811

1791

1771

1751

Fig. 6. Contribution to global warming of CO2 emissions due to energy sector, cement production and land use change from 1751 to 1990
(Source: IVIG, 2002).

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L.P. Rosa et al. / Energy Policy 32 (2004) 14991510

Section 5 presents the main conclusions of the paper,

enphasizing the importance of the BP in the international scenario. The most important issue of the BP is to
point that annual emission is not the best measure of
climate change effect neither the best measure to deal
with the responsibilities shares as well. The contribution
to the climate change taking into account, among others
issues, the gases lifetimes, is an important step pointed
out by the BP. This explains the international attention
about the scientic and methodological aspects of
the proposal by Brazil to distribute the burden of the
emissions reductions. It is important to note that the
concept of the BP does not necessarily deal with any
specic period of time. It can be applied to any certain
period of time. The choice of the starting and ending
dates implies in different share of responsibilities among
groups of countries such as the Annex I and Non-Annex
I Parties to the Convention, what involves an important
aspect for the policy makers.

2. Brazilian Proposal for sharing responsibility based on

contributions to temperature increaseoverview
The BP has addressed the relationship between the
emissions of GHG and the increase of global mean
surface temperature. It has also made an exercise in
order to choose a reduction target for each Annex I
country. The choice was made in such a way as to assign
relative responsibilities to individual countries according
to their contribution to climate change. It was used the
existent and available data for almost all countries at
that moment (1996/1997) which were exclusively related
to CO2 emissions from the energy sector. For the same
reason, it was chosen a certain time period (19902020)
only as an example to explain the main content of the
proposal: the importance of shifting the focus from
emissions to temperature increase. This focus
changing is important because temperature increase
can be recognizable as a better indicator for the climate
change effect itself. It is also important because
considering the indicator temperature increase results
in accountability of responsibilities shares different from
the responsibilities established by the emissions
indicator as pointed by the Kyoto Protocol. It is also
possible to use it to assign relative responsibilities
collectively to the Annex I countries, Non-Annex I
countries or to any other groups of countries.
The intention of the BP was to achieve an agreed
model for computing the contribution of each country
to the increase of global temperature, starting from data
on annual emissions. The Proposal remains under
discussion and it has been referred to the Scientic
and Methodological Subsidiary Body (SBSTA) in the
1997 Conference of Parties (COP) in Kyoto. In May
1999, May 2001 and September 2002, expert meetings

discussed the scientic and methodological aspects of

the proposal by Brazil. The main conclusions are: (i) the
BP has sufcient scientic and technical basis for
operating the BP, (ii) different indicators to measure
the contribution to global warming give different
responsibilities, and (iii) the simulation of different
models give values very similar when measuring the
contributions to global warming, proving one aspect of
robustness of the proposal.
Due to the absence of data at that time, the original
BP has not considered other important GHG such as
CH4 and N2O and has not taken into account other
sectors different from energy sector. Our research
(IVIG, 2002) has produced new emissions database by
countries and we use some of our results in the present
paper, to compare the CO2 emissions due to fossil fuel
consumption and land use change. The database for
fossil fuel emissions by each country has been taken
from the US Oak Ridge National Laboratory, for the
period 17501990. The former version of the BP has
used k 1=140 years for CO2 concentration with a
constant factor C=0.5598 ppmv/Pg C determined by
linear regression to t the results of the MAGIC box
diffusion model for the period 19902020, computed
with emissions from the IPCC-IS92a scenario. Analogously a factor was matched to the temperature
increase, using the results of the MAGIC box diffusion
model in the same period.
In the revised BP a superposition of exponential
functions from the Bern Model has been used, instead of
the single exponential. Besides, the time response of
climate system has been included in the temperature
increase calculation with a superposition of two
exponential functions.
Ceiling and reduction targets were proposed to be
established for all the Annex I Parties in time periods
starting from 1990 and taking the initial concentration
in 1990 to be equal to zero. The relative responsibility of
each Annex I Party with respect to the Annex I Parties
collectively must be established for each period of time
by considering the respective concentration of GHG in
the atmosphere in the initial year of the period.
The results of a simulation based on the BP are shown
in Table 1 (relative shares, based on the following
indicators: emissions, concentrations and temperature
increase, of Annex I and Non-Annex I countries).
Depending on the indicator utilized, the responsibilities
of the two groups of countries, used as example, are
quite different.
Ofcially, the BP is the unique option for international burden sharing being carried out by
the UNFCCC.1 At the moment, the international
1

Other approaches can be found in the literature, like the Grandfathered Proposal based on a hybrid per capita accountability; the
WRIs carbon-intensity related proposal; the Argentine proposal

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Table 1
Relative share of CO2 emissions (energy sector) and contributions to
atmospheric concentration and temperature increase

Emissions in 1990
Concentrations in 1990

Annex I (%)

Non-Annex I (%)

75
79

25
21

Contribution to temperature increase

In 1990
88
In 2010
82
In 2020
79

12
18
21

Source: Brazilian Proposal (1997).

community is starting to discuss the next commitment

period of the Kyoto Protocol and the proposal by Brazil
can help the discussions on share of responsibilities. As
the BP presents a different option to share responsibilities among countries due to anthropogenic activities,
shifting the focus of the debate from the emissions to the
temperature increase,2 it establishes a necessary new
approach to compute the emissions. It has to be taken
into account that the several greenhouse gases have
different lifetimes and characteristics and that the
climate system has a response for the gases.3

3. Current debate on the Brazilian Proposal

The BP has motivated the current scientic debate on
its simplications and assumptions to t, in transparent
and easy formulae for fast calculation, the complex time
dependent relationship between emissions of GHG and
global temperature increase (Enting, 1998; den Elzen
et al., 1999a, b; Fuglevesdt and Berntsen, 1999; Meira,
1999).
A criticism to the BP arises from the difculties that
such a complexity of climate system poses for dening
responsibility sharing, based on contributions to temperature increase calculated from emissions and atmospheric concentrations. The criticism on the original
proposal was recognized in the revised version of the
proposal.
(footnote continued)
for index-linking targets to GDP; the Triptych Proposal of
University of Utrecht; the Contraction and Convergence Proposal
of GCI (Global Commons Institute); the Increasing participation/
Multistage approach Proposal; and others.
2
This implied the estimative of green house gases historical
emissions prior to 1990. Consequently, this information goes beyond
the National Communications being carried out at the moment.
3
This is illustrated by the sentences: In a rst approximation, the
dependence of the atmospheric concentrations upon the emissions over
a given period of time is proportional to the accumulation of the
emissions up to the year in question, taking into account that the older
the emission the smaller its effect on the concentration, due to the
exponential natural decay of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
with a different lifetime for each gas (UNFCCC, 1997).

1503

The original paper presented by Brazil in 1997

proposed an approach for estimating the relative share
of responsibility for climate change, by different Annex I
parties, based on their contribution to the increase of
Global mean surface temperature over a certain period
of time. According to Meira (2001): the proposal itself
was for the use of an agreed simple climate model for
estimating the temperature increase resulting from
emissions of different countries. As an illustration, the
1997 assumed that the temperature increase is proportional to the time integral of the radiative forcing; a fact
which is only valid for very short time periods. This
aspect of the model was later corrected. In addiction, the
non-linearities in the carbon cycle and radiative forcing
were included. As a consequence of the inclusion of nonlinearities, the question of attribution of climate change
to different countries only could be addressed by
adopting a differential, or marginal, approach. All
the above changes are documented in the Report on the
Expert Meeting held in Cachoeira Paulista, Brazil (den
Elzen et al., 1999a, b), the primary focus of the expert
meeting was to identify issues relating to the scientic
and methodological aspects of the BP, including those
that need further consideration and areas of future
work.
Regarding the revised version, we comment below the
main points argued. Most of them were discussed at the
Expert Meeting of Cachoeira Paulista and considered in
the references already mentioned in this paper. The
conclusion of the meeting is that there is sufcient
scientic and the technical basis for operating the
revised BP and the methodology proposed by Brazil of
using a highly parameterized, simple climate model, is
conceptually sound given its purpose and when applied
on short time horizons. The revised methodology is a
major improvement compared to the original proposal,
but still contains some important deciencies: The
carbon cycle sub-model needs to be improved to better
represent the non-linear response of CO2 concentrations
to a pulse emission. Such improvements must ensure
adequate inclusion of terrestrial processes such as CO2
fertilization (den Elzen et al., 1999a, b). There are several
assumptions argued in the model used to support the
revised BP, as follows.
Emissions from fossil fuels prior to 1950 were
extrapolated in the BP from 19501973 data and so
overestimate industrialized countries contribution
(Enting, 1998; den Elzen et al., 1999a, b). However, there are many discrepancies among different
databases on early emissions, which are not quantitatively so relevant for temperature increase as those
after 1950. In compensation the non-inclusion of bunker
fuels emissions in the BP model favours Annex I
countries. Anyway, we do not made such an extrapolation in our calculation, where we use Enerdata (Martin,
1990).

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Emissions from land uses were not included also and

this kind of contribution is higher in Non-Annex I
countries in the present. Nevertheless, it was higher in
Annex I counties in the past. Besides, the uncertainty is
high and emissions from food agriculture and cattle
must not be treated as those from deforestation or from
private cars in transportation. Land use emissions are a
weak point of the emissions inventories even in the
developed countries.
The calculation of the atmospheric concentration was
done with Bern model parameters from ocean carbon
cycle. It overestimates older emission of Annex I,
because the dynamics of ocean is slower than the
terrestrial one (Enting, 1998; den Elzen et al., 1999a, b).
Nevertheless, the concentration calculated for 1990
(370 ppmv) is only 5% higher than the IPCC value
(355 ppmv) and the result for 2100 (715 ppmv) differs
only 0.7% from MAGGIC model (710 ppmv).
The radiative forcing considered by the model of the
BP is proportional to the atmospheric concentration
from emissions. Therefore, it does not take into account
non-linear saturation and overlap processes, due to the
growing accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Saturation and overlap are non-linear effects that reduce
warming from present emissions and so its inclusion
shall benet Non-Annex I countries (Enting, 1998;

den Elzen et al., 1999a, b). However, it is due to early

Annex I emissions. Non-linear effects of radiative forcing
could reduce by about 20% Non-Annex I present
contribution, in a rst approximation to evaluate it by
comparing two hypothetical countries, one emitting
from 100 years until now and the other growing the
emission along the last 50 years (Enting, 1998).
Temperature is calculated with time constant of
climate response higher in the Brazilian model than in
other models. Therefore, the climate response becomes
too slow and it increases contribution of early emitters
of Annex I. Other models use only fast response of
climate response neglecting the slow component, which
is recognized to exist (den Elzen et al., 1999a, b). The
question of considering this slow component of climate
response as relevant for climate policy is not a scientic
subject but a political issue to be discussed. From this
point of view, the BP is extremely fruitful. Table 2
summarizes the present discussion.
There are two main issues related to the BP, the
scientic and the methodological issues. The scientic
issues are related to the scientic aspects like robust
tools, data, models and the methodological issues are
related to indicators for contributions to global warming, non-linearities and feedbacks, attribution dates,
among others. In the expert meeting held in Cachoeira

Table 2
Criticisms and comments on the Brazilian proposal calculation approach to CO2
Contributions
(a) Emissions
From fossil fuels prior to 1950 extrapolated
from 19501973
Bunker not included
Emissions from land uses are not included

(b) Concentration
Parameters from Bern model are of ocean
carbon cycle

(c) Radiative forcing

Non-linear effects not included

(d) Temperature
Calculated with time constant of climate
response higher than in other models

In favour of Annex I

In favour of Non-Annex I

Estimated emissions favours industrialized

countries

There are discrepancies among different data

Contribution of Non-Annex I is higher in the

present

Non-inclusion of bunker favours Annex I

Contribution of Annex I higher in the past
High uncertainty and emissions from food
and agriculture and cattle must not be treated
as those from deforestation or from cars

Dynamics of ocean is slower than the

terrestrial one and overestimates older
emission of Annex I

The concentration calculated for 1990

(370 ppmv) is 5% higher than the IPCC value
(355 ppmv). The result for 2100 (715 ppmv)
differs only 0.7% from MAGGIC model
(710 ppmv)

Saturation and overlap reduce effects from

present emissions but it is due to early Annex
I emissions

Saturation and overlap non-linear effects if

included should decrease contribution from
Non-Annex I countries. Inclusion of nonlinear effects could reduce by 20% NonAnnex I present contribution

The climate response in the Brazilian model is

too slow and it increases contribution of early
emitters

Other models use only fast response of climate

response neglecting the slow component
which is recognized to exist

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Paulista, Brazil, 1999, it was concluded the existence

of sufcient scientic and technical basis for operating
the BP.
Some authors (den Elzen et al., 1999a, b) have made a
critical analysis of the two versions of the BP from
scientic and methodological points of view. Related to
the rst version (UNFCCC, 1997) of BP, there are three
most important observations about BP:

of the aerosols and some GEE precursors emissions in

the climate response effects, the creation of a strong
historical data surveys in terms of gases emissions and
the importance of making efforts to turn the indicators
of the climate change easier to be dealt with by the
policy makers and non-specialists. They will be comment in the following sub-chapters:

(a) the study claims for the inclusion of other two

greenhouse gases, N2O and CH4, as BP calculates
only the CO2 emissions due to energy sector;
(b) the study also claims for the inclusion of land use
change and forestry sectors and its contribution to
global warming, as BP calculates only emissions
from fossil fuel;
The BP authors arguments to these two points
can be claried by the following afrmation:
Different greenhouse gases can be included, with
their respective constants of proportionality between temperature (or sea-level rise) and the
accumulation of concentrations, and their individual affects added in terms of the resulting change
in temperature or sea-level rise over the period
considered (UNFCCC, 1997).
(c) the study considers an error to suggest that there is
a long time delay between the contribution to CO2
concentrations and temperature increase, showing
that other models disagree of it.

3.1. Indicators

Related to this question, there is a study developed by

Rosa et al. (see the webpage http://unfccc.int/issues/
ccc.html), with the objective to show the robustness of
the BP in such aspect. It is an exercise using different
parameters in a same climate response model to
compare the results in terms of time delay.
Another theme discussed by the authors is the transfer
of energy-efcient technology from developed to
developing countries; the starting year for calculating
emissions; the technical uncertainties related to estimating land use changes, carbon content of biomass and
terrestrial dynamics. Nevertheless, it seems that, in fact,
the rst three issues represent, even after the second
version of BP with revision (2000), the most important
ones in respect to decision-making implications.
The expert meeting held in Bracknell, UK, 2527
September 2002, had some important results in terms of
scientic and methodological issues. Besides, new
suggestions for different targets arose to be implemented
in the next steps of the researches. The main issues
discussed and organized in a document (UNFCCC,
2002) are listed below: Indicators, Non-linearities
and feedbacks, Databases, Methods of attribution, Variation of attribution start and end dates,
Evaluation Data, Other forcing: aerosols and ozone
precursors, Different Scenarios and Display of
results. The most important issues involve the inclusion

Indicators are used in the contribution to climate

change to measure the impact of each nation on the
global warming. An ideal indicator should be close to
impacts, understandable and certain. BP defends the
temperature increase as the best indicator to understand the climate change because the obvious choice of
a variable to measure climate change is the change in
global mean surface temperature, since other global
variables such as the time rate of change of the global
mean surface temperature and the rise in mean sea level
are derived from the change in global mean surface
temperature (UNFCCC, 1997). The nature of such
changes and the implications and usefulness as a
criterion for burden sharing needs to be (i) close
resemble the impacts of climate change, (ii) understandable to scientists as well as the public, (iii) certainty
to calculate the indicator as well as robust4 and;
(iv) backward discount to not give less weight to
emissions that occurred a long time ago.5
Some important climate change indicators identied
by the experts in the Bracknell meeting were analyzed in
terms of usefulness for policy makers: emissions,
concentration, radiative forcing, temperature increase,
sea-level rise. Nevertheless, different indicators will
result in different attributions (UNFCCC, 2001), as
the adoption of annual emission as an indicator of share
of responsibilities, as in the Kyoto Protocol.6 Sea-level
rise, an indicator of climate change of considerable
4

Each step further down the causeeffect chain (i.e. from emissions
to concentrations or to radiative forcing and so on) introduces
additional uncertainty, due to an additional step and non-linearities in
the calculation.
5
For example, the concentration of methane today is not inuenced
by emissions of methane 100 years ago. Because of the short lifetime of
methane in the atmosphere, these emissions have decayed almost
completely by now. The experts noted that it is uncertain whether such
backward discounting reects the inuence of emissions with respect
to damages. In addition, backward discounting also affects the
certainty of the indicator, since information that dates further back is
usually more uncertain.
6
It is important to highlight that the parties are presumed to have
control over their future annual emissions and the Convention
requirement is that Parties report annual emissions, given to a natural
tendency to compare the annual emissions of Parties and thus
implicitly to associate the emissions to the relative responsibilities in
inducing the climate change (UNFCCC, 1997). This is the present
approach of the Kyoto Protocol inducing the experts, policy makers
and mainly the non-experts a misinterpretation of climate change.

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interest to many coastal countries, is closely related to

change in average global temperatures, but not all
countries are impacted by the sea-level rise, while the
temperature increase affects all. The most important
indicators are listed below (UNFCCC, 2002):
Cumulative emissions: The sum of annual emissions
from a source between a start and an end date. This
indicator can only be applied for one greenhouse gas at
a time. Effects of several gases cannot be compared.7
Concentrations: The effect of all emissions between a
start and an end date on concentrations of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at the end date. This
indicator can only be applied for one greenhouse gas at
a time. Effects of several gases cannot be compared.
Integrated past concentrations with climate response:
Integrating the increased concentrations due to emissions from a start date to an end date. This indicator
was used in the calculations that accompanied the
original BP. (The revised proposal by Brazilian calculates temperature increase, rate of temperature increase
and sea-level rise.) It is the rst proxy for the
temperature increase. This indicator can also only be
applied for one greenhouse gas at a time. Effects of
several gases cannot be compared.
Radiative forcing (due to increased concentrations):
the radiative forcing due to the increased concentrations
at the end date. The effects of different gases can be
combined with this indicator.
Integrated past radiative forcing: Integrating the
radiative forcing due to increased concentrations from
a start date to an end date. This indicator is very similar
to integrated past concentrations with climate response.
It can be used to combine the effects of all gases.
Integrated future radiative forcing: The radiative
forcing due to the concentrations integrated from when
emissions end to a future date. It applies the concept of
global warming potentials (GWPs) to concentrations
(instead of applying it to pulse emissions), taking
explicitly into account the unrealized effects that will
occur in the future after the gases have been emitted.
Temperature increase: The increase in global-average
surface temperature due to emissions. The calculation
takes into account the effect of emissions between a start
and an end date on concentrations and on radiative
forcing.8
7
Rovere et al. (2002) propose the cumulative emissions over time as
indicator for measuring the responsibilities over the time, starting from
the year 1990 allowing growth targets relative to a business-as-usual
projection. According to Rovere et al. (2002), this would eliminate the
uncertainties and complexity of models, addressing some political
challenge of agreeing on data sets (especially non-CO2 and CO2
emission from land use change), preserving the original spirit of the BP
and more acceptable to the Parties.
8
It is interesting to observe a study carried out by Wigley and Raper
(2002) as an example of the complexity of different opinions about the
temperature increase in the issue of climate change. According to the
summary made by the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and

Rate of temperature change: The rate of temperature

change calculated as the derivative of the temperature
increase.
Sea-level rise: The processes of thermal expansion of
water and melting of ice. Because sea-levels increase very
slowly (in the order of thousands of years), the effects
seen today may be small compared to those that will
occur in the future, even if emissions stop.
There is a trade-off among indicators. On the one
hand, the indicator should be as close as possible to the
actual impacts of climate change, i.e. damages, as
possible. It should therefore be further down the
causeeffect chain. On the other hand, it should
be calculated with certainty and therefore be at the
beginning of the causeeffect chain. Table 3 lists the
indicators and their characteristics as assessed by
Bracknell expert meeting.
The main conclusions about indicators of the expert
meeting of Bracknell are that (i) the indicators from
concentrations onwards do not include the effects of the
emissions that will occur after the emission, since
greenhouse gases stay in the atmosphere after they have
been emitted for a period of time, the gases contribute to
increased concentrations, radiative forcing, increased
temperatures and sea-level rise depending on their
particular removal processes; (ii) it is possible to
combine various indicators into composite indicators
in order to resemble more closely actual damages, but
no one was suggested; (iii) the experts only considered
(footnote continued)
Global Change (www.co2science.org/journal/2003/v6n14c3.htm, on 3
April 2003) In an attempt to quantify changes in the worlds climate
due to anthropogenic activities expected to occur between 1990 and
2100, the Second Assessment Report (SAR) of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected a mean global temperature
increase of 0.9 to 3.5 C under a no climate policy scenario that
assumes humanity does nothing to intentionally inuence earths
climate in the interim; while the IPCCs Third Assessment Report
(TAR) projected a mean global temperature increase of 1.45.8 C for
the same scenario. Wigley and Raper thus set out to answer the
obvious question raised by these dramatically different results: Why
are the more recent projections so much larger? The authors begin by
stating that the different results of the IPCCs second and third
assessment reports arise from differences in the two major components
of the reports climate model calculations: (1) differences in emissions
scenarios, which are derived from what Wigley and Raper refer to as
storylines, and (2) differences in science, which one would hope
would be due to advancements in science. The authors then describe
these differences and how they altered the conclusions of the two
reports. With respect to the high-end warming of the two assessment
reportswhich is what climate alarmists always cite in support of their
call for immediate implementation of draconian regulations to reduce
anthropogenic CO2 emissionsWigley and Raper report that the
projected 19902100 warming rose by 2.3 C (from a value of 3.5 C in
the SAR to a value of 5.8 C in the TAR), but that advancements in
science were responsible for only 4% of that increased warming, which
translates to an additional temperature increase of a mere 0.1 C
between the time of the two reports. All the rest of the extra warming
projected in the TAR report (2.2 C out of 2.3 C) was thus the result of
nothing more than a scarier worst-case storyline.

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L.P. Rosa et al. / Energy Policy 32 (2004) 14991510

1507

Table 3
Indicators for attribution to climate change and their characteristics
Indicator
Cumulative emissions
Concentrations
Integrated concentrations with climate response
Radiative forcing (due to increased concentrations)
Integrated past radiative forcing
Integrated future radiative forcing
Temperature increase
Rate of temperature change
Sea level rise

Close to impacts

Understandable

1
1.5
2
3
3.5
4
4
4

4
4

4
2b
4

Certain
a

3
2.5
2.5
2
2
2
1.5
1
0.5

Backward discounting

3
2
3
2
3
2
?
1

Source: UNFCCC (2002).

a
The certainty depends on the certainty of the emissions.
b
While the indicator rate of temperature change is well understandable, the attribution of positive and negative contributions to the rate of
temperature change is more abstract.

indicators evaluated at the global scale, regional

indicators also could be dened, but such calculation
would be extremely complex and more uncertain
(UNFCCC, 2002).

These issues were also discussed in the expert meeting

held in Cachoeira Paulista, Brazil, 1999 (den Elzen
et al., 1999a, b). The original BP and some participating experts used simplied linear models. The
representation of the climate system is less realistic,
yet the attribution is simple, because emissions at
each point in time are considered as having the same
effect. After that meeting, there was the revision of
the BP in which the period taken into account was
reduced to solve this problem. In general, on short
time scales, linear models are more reliable than on
longer time scales.9
All models confront the same difculty of the
uncertainties and non-linearities. It should be commended here the CICERO, Norway; CSIRO, Australia; DEA-CCAT, Denmark; ECOFYS, Germany;
Hadley Center, United Kingdom; GRAPE and
RITE, Japan; LBNL, UIUC and ISAM, United
States of America; RIVM, the Netherlands; and
NIWA, New Zealand. There are two models in
Brazil: the rst one is the BP itself and the other is the
integrated past emission with climate response being
conducted by the IVIG/COPPE/UFRJ.

3.2. Non-linearities and feedbacks

Several processes in the climate system are non-linear
and include feedbacks. Consequently, the sum of the
effects of emissions from individual regions is not equal
to the effect of all emissions together. Some nonlinearities occur, for example, in the carbon cycle, the
atmospheric chemistry, the relationship between concentration of CO2 and radiative forcing, the relationship
between radiative forcing and temperature increase
and the relation between temperature increase and sealevel rise.
Feedback processes will lead to non-linearities when
the feedback is strong. Even when the feedbacks behave
linearly, they introduce the same methodological problems as non-linearities. The experts felt that at this
stage it is difcult to determine the relative signicance
of the non-linearities and feedbacks for the attribution
calculation.
Due to the non-linearities and the feedbacks, it can be
observed the following aspects (UNFCCC, 2002):
*

Emissions at different points in time will have

different effects. For example, because of the nonlinearity in the calculation of radiative forcing from
concentrations, the additional radiative forcing due
to additional CO2 concentration is a quarter lower
today (due to higher CO2 concentrations) than it was
at the beginning of industrialization (when the CO2
concentration was lower).
The effect of emissions of individual sources may
depend on emissions of other sources. For example,
the effect of CO2 emissions today is different because
emissions have occurred in the past.

4. The climate response problem

According to several expertise, the approach of the
BP needs to be improved to consider some non-linear
effects such as climate response. A rst step, starting
from the original BP, was the inclusion of an exponential decay factor in the integration to calculate the
warming effect. The crucial parameter is the decay
constant to be used in the exponential function. There
are different values in discussion, all of them arising
9

According to Pinguelli et al. (unfccc.int/issues/ccc.html) the

variation of the parameters used to simulate the climate response do
not change the main conclusion of the BP.

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L.P. Rosa et al. / Energy Policy 32 (2004) 14991510

from more sophisticated calculations. Enting (1998)

suggest the time constant 37 years (see Table 5), from
the work of Hasselmann et al. (1993). In the Informal
Meeting on the BP during the Conference of Parties
(COP 4) at Buenos Aires other values have been
suggested. In the Expert Meeting of Cachoeira Paulista,
in May 1999, different climate responses have been
discussed (den Elzen et al., 1999a, b).
The question is deeper than knowing the best
parameters to describe the climate response in a policy
maker approximation. In spite of the heavy advanced
computation for modelling atmospheric circulation
coupled to ocean in global warming simulations, there
are constraints in models (Hasselmann et al., 1993).
The global mean temperature near the earth surface
can be studied through a response function to a
radiative forcing impulse, provoked by the instantaneous variation in the GHG atmospheric concentration,
due to a pulse emission. The system relaxes to
equilibrium and the simplest approximation for
this response is an exponential decay with a single time
constant. There are different values for the time
constant as pointed out in Section 5. The response
function can be represented through a superposition of
normal modes, as usual in solutions of differential
equations. A two exponential functions sum is the
simplest case of combination of response functions
superposed. Different time constants have been given in
the literature with a broad range of values (Cubash,
1992; Hasselmann et al., 1993).
Nevertheless, all those approximations are limited by
the high residual non-linearity for large response times.
The response function is a proper tool for linear system,
but it is not enough to explain the non-linear dynamics.
There is not consensus on how to include non-linear
effects in the context of a simplied policy maker model.
The warming effect of the emitted gas is related to its
permanence in the atmosphere during a period, where its
molecules absorb partially the thermal radiation from
the Earth surface to the external space, blocking the exit
of heat and increasing the average temperature near
the Earth surface. The radiative forcing, linked to the
atmospheric gas concentration, drives this effect. The
non-linear characteristic of the system complicates this
relationship.
We have used different alternative time constants for
calculating the contributions to global warming from
Annex I and Non-Annex I CO2 emissions, to check the
sensitivity of the results. Differently of the BP, we do not
calculate the global temperature increase, but instead
the contribution to global warming, as the integration of
the atmospheric concentration from the gas emissions. It
is an ingredient for calculating the global temperature
increase (Rosa and Ribeiro, 2001).
We dene the contribution to climate change W t;
expressed in mass of the gas multiplied by time

(Gt C yr), as the integration of the atmospheric

concentration of the emitted gas along the time, with a
weight function in the integrand to simulate the climate
response. Due to negative feedback of the climate
system, there is a kind of saturation of the warming
effect represented by W t and so, of the global
temperature increase, which is related to this function.
It is possible to simulate the climate response by a
superposition of exponential decay functions also with
different decay constants. So
W t

XX
i

bj gi Wij ki ; wj ; t;

where
Wij ki ; wj; t e

wj t

0 ki wj t0

t0

00

d t00 eki t ct00 ; 2

dte

ct is the emission in the time t; ki and bi are,

respectively, the exponential decay constants and the
factors in the superposition of exponential functions of
the Bern Model for the atmospheric concentration of
the emitted gas (Table 4); wi and gi are, respectively, the
exponential decay constants and the factors in the
superposition of exponential functions for simulating
the climate response (Table 5).

Table 4
Different parameters for the decay of CO2 atmospheric concentration
(1)

(2)

(3)

1=ki

bi

1=ki

bi

1=ki

bi

Years
330
80
20
1.6

0.216
0.392
0.294
0.098

Years
6.9
71.1
815.7

0.30036
0.34278
0.35686

Years
140

(1) Bern model parameters used in the revised Brazilian Proposal

(1998).
(2) Bern model parameters (IPCC, 1995).
(3) Single exponential used in the former Brazilian Proposal.

Table 5
Different parameters for the time response of climate
(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

1=wi

gi

1=wi

gi

1=wi

gi

1=wi

gi

Years
20
990

0.634
0.366

Years
3.66
120

0.574
0.426

Years
1.6
58

0.585
0.415

Years
37

(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)

Revised Brazilian Proposal.

Meta image, quoted in Elzen et al. (1999,a b).
Image 2.1, Elzen et al. (1999,a b).
Enting (1998) from Hasselmann et al. (1993).

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L.P. Rosa et al. / Energy Policy 32 (2004) 14991510

5. Global contributions to concentration considering

different parameters for the decay of CO2 atmospheric
concentration and global contributions to global warming
considering climate response
For comparison, we have calculated the atmospheric
concentration and the global warming contributions
from historical World emissions (CO2 from energy
sector) for different model approximations. The atmospheric concentration is calculated (Fig. 1) by using: (1)
continuous emission integrated with a linear approximation, which has been done in previous paper (Rosa
and Ribeiro, 2001); (2) discrete annual emissions as
usual. The curves present similar results. We show also
(Fig. 2) the results with the atmospheric concentration
described trough different superposition of exponential
functions corresponding to different time constants,
including those of Bern Model (Table 4).
Comparison of Results for Total Past Contributions
using different approximations and parameters.
As it is possible to see in Fig. 1, there is good
agreement between the two approximations (at rst, the
continuous emission integrated with a linear approximation, which has been done in previous paper, Rosa
and Ribeiro, 2001; and second, the discrete annual
emissions as usual). The same is not true in Fig. 2, where
the single exponential with 1=ki 140 years gives a
result in complete disagreement with the Bern Model.
We use the Bern Model parameters of column (1) of
Table 4, in our computations of climate change W t
(Fig. 3), where the four groups of parameters for time
response presented in Table 5 are compared. In the
calculation of W t we have checked (Fig. 3) different
exponential functions for simulating the climate response once it is not clear, until now, what is the best
time constant to t of the climate response (Table 5).
The result for W t is higher when we use the parameters
of calculus (1) of Table 5.
To address the question of the introduction of new
gases emissions database, we are developing a project
which has some results presented below. In Fig. 4, it can
be observed the historical (17511998) contribution to
global warming of the Annex I and Non-Annex I Parties
to global warming only related to energy sector. For this
exercise, it was considered the parameters of the BERN
model (column (1) of Table 4) and the parameters for
climate response from the revised BP (column (1) of
Table 5).
In 1998, the 17511998 contribution to climate change
related to the energy sector of the Annex I Parties
was responsible for 87% (2.097 Gt C yr) of the world
energy sector contributions, and the contribution
of Non-Annex I Parties to climate change was 13%
(314 Gt C yr).
Fig. 5 shows the contribution to global warming of
CO2 emissions due to Land Use Change from 1751 to

1509

1990 by the following groups of countries: OECD, Latin

America, Africa and Asia. For the period taken into
account, the contribution to global warming of the
OECD countries (1650 Gt C yr) corresponds to 49.3%
of the world land use change contribution to climate
change, Asia 22.4% (750 Gt C yr), Africa 11.9% (400 Gt
C yr) and Latin America 16.4% (550 Gt C yr).
Fig. 6 illustrates the contribution to global warming
from CO2 emissions of the Annex I and Non-Annex I
Parties due to the Energy Sector and Land Use Change
computed together from 17511990. The Annex I
Parties represent 64.14% of the world energy sector
plus land use change contribution to climate change
(3670 Gt C yr) and the Non-Annex I Parties represent
35.85% (2051 Gt C yr).

6. Conclusion
The Brazilian Proposal has an important role in the
international scenario. The most important issue of the
BP is to point that annual emission is not the best
measure of climate change effect neither the best
measure to deal with the responsibilities shares as well.
The contribution to the climate change taking into
account, among others issues, the gases lifetimes, is an
important step pointed out by the Brazilian Proposal.
This explains the international attention about the
scientic and methodological aspects of the proposal
by Brazil to distribute the burden of the emission
reductions.
It was used our model (Rosa and Ribeiro, 2001),
described in the chapter 3, to estimate the contribution
to climate change from CO2 emissions of the Annex I
and Non-Annex I Parties due to the Energy Sector and
Land Use Change computed together (Fig. 6), in the
chapter 4. It can be observed that Annex I countries
presents higher contribution than Non-Annex I countries considering the period from 17511990.
It is important to note that the concepts of the
Brazilian Proposal does not necessarily deal with any
specic period of time. It can be applied to any period of
time different of the one, used as an example, in the
ofcial document of the proposal. The choice of the
starting and ending dates implies in different share of
responsibilities among groups of countries, such as
OECD, continents, or the Annex I and Non-Annex I
Parties to the Climate Convention, what involves an
important aspect for the policy makers.
The Brazilian Proposal highlights another important
political issue in the climate change debate: the existent
long time vision of the causeeffect relation between the
anthropogenic emission and the climate change effect
itself. It reminds the development processes taken by the
world and their respective consequences. In this sense,
Brazilian proposal can be considered as a starting point

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L.P. Rosa et al. / Energy Policy 32 (2004) 14991510

(for the second period of compromises, in case Kyoto

Protocol will be conrmed for the rst period as well)
for the involvement of developing countries and for the
fullment of the developed countries commitment to
GHG abatement, looking for a different pathway
development.

Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the National Council of
Research (CNPq), the Ministry of Science and Technology (Global Climate Change Department), the Foundation for Research Support of Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ)
and the researchers of International Virtual Institute on
Global Change (IVIG), specially, Leonardo Cardoso.

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