The FAIR model is an interactive, decision-support tool to analyse environmental and costs implications of climate mitigation regimes for future commitments for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. The model links long-term climate targets and global reduction objectives with regional emissions allowances and abatement costs, accounting for the used Kyoto Mechanisms. The results can be analyzed at various geographical scales, i.e. for the 26 world regions (FAIR region model), 27 EU Member States (FAIR EU model) and 224 UN countries (FAIR world model).
The Kyoto Protocol, which has entered into force since February 2005, is the first step of departure towards achieving the long-term objective of the UNFCCC of stabilising atmospheric greenhouse gas levels at non-dangerous levels (Article 2). The international negotiations on the design of a post-2012 climate agreement have just started with the Bali road map. One of the most contentious issues for this is the issue of (international) burden sharing or differentiation of post-2012 commitments: Who should contribute when and how much to reducing the global greenhouse gas emissions? It is an issue related to technical capabilities and economic costs, as well as considerations on responsibility and equity. We developed the policy decision-support tool FAIR model, which tries to cover most of these issues quantitatively.
The model is not aimed at promoting any particular approach to international burden sharing. Instead, the FAIR model is constructed to support policy makers in quantitatively evaluating the environmental, economic and distributional implications of a range in approaches, linking these to targets for global climate protection.
The FAIR team consists of Michel den Elzen, Paul Lucas and Jasper van Vliet.
An A4-poster with the description of the FAIR 2.0 model is also available: FAIR Poster (pdf, 321Kb)
FAIR software environment
Fair is developed with the visual development tool MyM, a coproduct of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) and Tizio BV.