Technology advance and discounting of the historical emission responsibilities

Solving the dispute over historical greenhouse gases emission responsibility is critical for the future climate agreement. This article borrows the methodology from the carbon budget proposal, but further develops this approach by proposing discount of the historical responsibility due to the technology advance. Firstly, it studies the Annex I countries’ mitigation and financial responsibilities of the historical emission in the carbon budget proposal; furthermore, it analyzes the results and implications of the discount approach. Results show that the discount method significantly reduces the burden of the mitigation and financial responsibilities of the Annex I countries. Thus, we claim that the discount approach is a systematic, pragmatic, and fair approach to solve the historical responsibility dispute and financial problems for the post-2020 international climate institutions.