Calculations for the Greenhouse Development Rights Calculator

This working paper provides the technical documentation for the calculations used in the Greenhouse Development Rights (GDRs) on-line calculator, a tool designed to examine burden-sharing for climate change based on responsibility and financial capacity.

• The GDRs framework uses the individual as the primary unit of analysis, requiring data on instantaneous income distributions within countries. The calculator assumes that income within these countries is distributed lognormally, using the Gini coefficient to determine the standard deviation of the log of income.
• The calculator implements a system where income below a specific lower threshold (yl) is exempt from contributing to an individual's capacity to pay. Additionally, emissions associated with incomes below this threshold are exempt from contributing to an individual's responsibility.
• Individual per capita emissions are assumed to vary with income based on an elasticity (γ) that is consistent across all countries. Empirical evidence suggests this elasticity typically falls between 0.7 and 1.0.
• The Responsibility-Capacity Indicator (RCI) is the central metric for allocating burden-sharing. It is calculated as a weighted sum of a nation's share of global responsibility and its share of global capacity.
• Burden sharing is modeled as a tax (T), which is defined as a fraction (τ) of the gross world output (GWP). National tax obligations are then determined by multiplying the total tax by the national RCI.
• The calculator can optionally compute the Suits index to measure the progressivity or regressivity of the tax system on a global scale. This requires the global income distribution, which is a weighted sum of individual country lognormal distributions based on population shares.

APA

Kemp-Benedict, E. (2008). Calculations for the Greenhouse Development Rights Calculator. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/calculations-gdr-calculator.pdf

Chicago

Kemp-Benedict, Eric. Calculations for the Greenhouse Development Rights Calculator. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2008. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/calculations-gdr-calculator.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Kemp-Benedict |first1=Eric |title=Calculations for the Greenhouse Development Rights Calculator |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=24 September 2008 |url=https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/calculations-gdr-calculator.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{kempbenedict2008calculations, author = {Kemp-Benedict, Eric}, title = {{Calculations for the Greenhouse Development Rights Calculator}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2008}, month = sep, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/calculations-gdr-calculator.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }