Confronting the climate change challenge: discussing the role of rural India under cumulative emission budget approach Harald Kaechele a, *, T.S. Amjath-Babu a , Thomas Kutter a , Kathrin Specht a , Sunil Nautiyal b , Klaus Mu ¨ ller a , K.V. Raju b a Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Institute of Socio-Economics, Eberswalder Str. 84, 15374 Mu ¨ ncheberg, Germany b Centre for Ecological Economics and Natural Resources, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Nagarabhavi, P.O. Bangalore 560072, India 1. Introduction Without significant change in the current emission path of green house gases (GHGs) (reflected in atmospheric CO 2 concentration of 270 mmol mol À1 during pre-industrial times, 387 mmol mol À1 in 2009, possibly 550 mmol mol À1 by 2050 and 800 mmol mol À1 by 2100 [Long and Ort, 2010]), the world appears set on a path of rising global temperatures up to 6 8C, with catastrophic consequences for the environment (OECD- IEA, 2009). Even with temperature escalations considerably below 6 8C, there could be profound negative ramifications on food production, natural ecosystems, freshwater supply and health care (IPCC, 2007a,b). Climate change (CC) can also trigger large scale migrations (IOM, 2008) as its implications could be beyond the resilience and adaptation capacity limits of many communities and states (Barnet, 2003). It could also increase security risks (Barnet and Adger, 2007) and exacer- bate conflicts over the existing resources (Reuveny, 2007). Given the scientific consensus on anthropogenic origin of climate change (Rosenzweig et al., 2008; Doran and Zimmer- man, 2009; Anderegg et al., 2010), it is our common future responsibility to effectively address the challenge of climate change through reducing green house gases (GHG) emissions and fostering adaptation. It requires global cooperation on an unprecedented scale (Stern, 2009) and significant changes in the current policy frameworks. Unfortunately the time frame for avoiding potentially dangerous consequences is closing. Reiterated in Copenhagen accord (COP 15 of UNFCC), climate experts and the world’s political leaders agreed on the goal of limiting the rise in global average surface temperature by 2 8C (UNFCCC, 2009). The decision of the 2 8C as a tolerable limit partly reflects the IPCC assessment on possible impacts of a range of warming scenarios (2–48) and expected temperature escalation given a mid range emissions trajectory until the end of the current century (New et al., e n v i r o n m e n t a l s c i e n c e & p o l i c y 1 4 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 1 1 0 3 – 1 1 1 2 a r t i c l e i n f o Published on line 8 July 2011 Keywords: 2 8C guard rail Emission trade WBGU Rural poor Low carbon growth Decarbonization a b s t r a c t Current global climate policy architecture does not aim at stabilizing the greenhouse gases concentration in the atmosphere that may achieve the proclaimed 2 8C guard rail. An alternative approach that targets on limiting the global cumulative emission to accomplish such an outcome is put forward by German Advisory Board of Global Change (WBGU). This research work further elaborates the approach and its flexibility instrument i.e. carbon trading. As the approach visualises sharing of the carbon budget (750Gt CO 2 ) equally to every human being (2.7 t CO 2 per capita), India is the country with largest tradable surplus reflecting its low emission per capita and large population. The research work further analyzes the emission profile of rural India and the significance of its future emission pathways within the proposed framework. It also shows how low carbon development in India can assist in cost effective decarbonization of industrialized countries and mitigation of climate change, given a global climate treaty based on the WBGU approach. # 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 33 432 82224; fax: +49 33 432 82308. E-mail address: hkaechele@zalf.de (H. Kaechele). availab le at www .s cien c edir ect .co m journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/envsci 1462-9011/$ – see front matter # 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.envsci.2011.06.002