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The aim of this paper is to put into perspective the concept of carbon budget and the means by which it has been negotiated, governed and appropriated by the countries. Specifically, it seeks to analyze how countries and companies appropriate the global carbon budget by analyzing cumulative historical emissions from countries and companies in the Oil sector during 1850 to 2010, in order to assess and justify non-governmental actors also have responsibilities in the international climate context.
In this way, seeks to understand the object of conflict between nations in the field of international climate negotiations, i.e. the common resource known as "carbon budget". The global carbon budget has been partially obscured both in the academic debate on climate negotiations and in addressing climate change by the mainstream media. In this sense, the present research work seeks to articulate efforts to illuminate the issues alluding to the main object of the climate negotiations. Alongside the necessary definitions, we seek to bring up the arguments for a reflection on how this budget, as a global common resource, can be shared in a responsible way among the different actors that have been unequally appropriated by States and large heavily polluting corporations.
In addition, the discussion in this paper raises a reflection on the responsibilities described in the Kyoto Protocol regime and should be expanded and refined so that other actors involved in the appropriation of the resource are part of the negotiations and that in some way responsibilities. Beside this, countries that have historically appropriated little of this resource and are at risk of "losses and damages" due to climate change, should have their rights observed, especially those associated with climate justice (NEWELL & PATERSON, 2010).
The design of the research was based on a review of the literature in the reading of the International Political Economy to global climate governance. In methodological terms, we used data on cumulative anthropogenic CO2 emissions from the pre-industrial era until 2010, from CAIT (WRI) Database.
As the main results, were found that the cumulative anthropogenic CO2 emissions to be concentrated in Annex I countries, around 70.42% of emissions. It is estimated that these countries consumed about 44.30% of the global carbon budget. It is noted that Small Island countries such as the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) cluster, that contributed little to the problem of global warming, consuming approximately 0.17% of the total carbon budget in the period. The Kyoto Protocol was the framework that ineffectively governed global climate governance in this context of uneven historical appropriation of the global carbon budget.
We argue that large and intensively polluting companies, especially those in the oil and gas sector, have appropriated a significant portion of the carbon budget. Emissions attributed to four private companies (ChevronTexaco, Exxon, British Petroleum and Shell) total approximately 164 GtCO2, more than China consumed over the same period.
Corporations have been conspicuously absent from any international arenas in which mandatory measures to address climate change are discussed, especially in thinking of adaptation measures and compensation for losses and damages of vulnerable populations.
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