Climate Change And The Kyoto Protocol

Even as the evidence of global warming mounts, the international response to this serious threat is coming unraveled. The United States has formally withdrawn from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol; other key nations are facing difficulty in meeting their Kyoto commitments; and developing countries face no limit on their emissions of the gases that cause global warming. In this clear and cogent book-reissued in paperback with an afterword that comments on recent events--David Victor explains why the Kyoto Protocol was never likely to become an effective legal instrument. He explores how its collapse offers opportunities to establish a more realistic alternative. Global warming continues to dominate environmental news as legislatures worldwide grapple with the process of ratification of the December 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The collapse of the November 2000 conference at the Hague showed clearly how difficult it will be to bring the Kyoto treaty into force. Yet most politicians, policymakers, and analysts hailed it as a vital first step in slowing greenhouse warming. David Victor was not among them. Kyoto's fatal flaw, Victor argues, is that it can work only if emissions trading works. The Protocol requires industrialized nations to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases to specific targets. Crucially, the Protocol also provides for so-called "emissions trading," whereby nations could offset the need for rapid cuts in their own emissions by buying emissions credits from other countries. But starting this trading system would require creating emission permits worth two trillion dollars--the largest single invention of assets by voluntary international treaty in world history. Even if it were politically possible to distribute such astronomical sums, the Protocol does not provide for adequate monitoring and enforcement of these new property rights. Nor does it offer an achievable plan for allocating new permits, which would be essential if the system were expanded to include developing countries. The collapse of the Kyoto Protocol--which Victor views as inevitable--will provide the political space to rethink strategy. Better alternatives would focus on policies that control emissions, such as emission taxes. Though economically sensible, however, a pure tax approach is impossible to monitor in practice. Thus, the author proposes a hybrid in which governments set targets for both emission quantities and tax levels. This offers the important advantages of both emission trading and taxes without the debilitating drawbacks of each. Individuals at all levels of environmental science, economics, public policy, and politics-from students to professionals--and anyone else hoping to participate in the debate over how to slow global warming will want to read this book.

"Comprehensive examination of the economic, social, and political context of climate policy in industrialized and developing nations. Calls for a multilateral approach that goes beyond the mitigation-focused Kyoto policies and stresses the importance of generating policies that work within a time frame commensurate with that of climate change itself"--Provided by publisher.

The adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in December 1997 was a major achievement in the endeavour to tackle the problem of global climate change at the dawn of the 21st century. After many years of involvement in the negotiation process, the book's two internationally recognised authors now offer the international community a first hand and inside perspective of the debate on the Kyoto Protocol. The book provides a comprehensive scholarly analysis of the history and content of the Protocol itself as well as of the economic, political and legal implications of its implementation. It also presents a perspective for the further development of the climate regime. These important features make this book an indispensable working tool for policy makers, negotiators, academics and all those actively involved and interested in climate change issues in both the developed and developing world.

"The Fight for Climate after COVID-19 draws on the troubled and uneven COVID-19 experience to illustrate the critical need to ramp up resilience rapidly and effectively on a global scale. After years of working alongside public health and resilience experts crafting policy to build both pandemic and climate change preparedness, Alice C. Hill exposes parallels between the underutilized measures that governments should have taken to contain the spread of COVID-19 -- such as early action, cross-border planning, and bolstering emergency preparation -- and the steps leaders can take now to mitigate the impacts of climate change. Through practical analyses of current policy and thoughtful guidance for successful climate adaptation, The Fight for Climate after COVID-19 reveals that, just as our society has transformed itself to meet the challenge of coronavirus, so too will we need to adapt our thinking and our policies to combat the ever-increasing threat of climate change." --

The book documents the scientific facts regarding climate change and a brief overview of the key developments in the climate change regime, discussing Kyoto Protocol and beyond. The North-South politics regarding energy markets and the emissions there from, are also discussed in the book. After establishing the scientific base, presenting agreements and policies for climate change in general, and the Kyoto Protocol in particular, the Instruments and Institutions for Kyoto Protocol are reviewed. The rapid and large climate changes can be expected to have far-reaching and, in many instances, unpredictable consequences not only for only for human societies, but also for all forms of life on Earth. For example, a rise global sea level, can threaten coastal cities and settlements throughout the world. The book discusses the impact of climate change and the associated environmental and socio-economic impacts in different parts of the world. The book discussed science and philosophy behind Climate Change and the Kyo

The Kyoto Protocol represents nearly a decade of international effort to reduce carbon emissions. While the treaty is the product of enormous international political effort, it has not been ratified by any major greenhouse emitter and it has been rejected by the United States. In this controversial new book, Warwick J. McKibbin and Peter Wilcoxen argue that the current approach of international negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol is going completely in the wrong direction. In Climate Change Policy after Kyoto, they attempt to steer the policy debate toward a realistic blueprint for effective policy. The authors believe that managing uncertainty—particularly the future costs of any plan—is key to realistic climate policy. They maintain that sustainable policy should meet four basic criteria: it should slow down carbon dioxide emissions where it is cost-effective to do so; compensate those who are hurt economically; require a high degree of consensus both domestically and internationally; and allow countries to enter the program easily and continue to participate even if they drop out of the agreement at certain times. The book summarizes the current state of knowledge about climate change and discusses the history of negotiations since 1992—in the process identifying the Kyoto Protocol as the wrong approach to the problem. It outlines important insights that economic theory offers for the design of climate policy, and uses those insights to develop a simple framework that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions while guaranteeing that short-run costs of compliance will not be excessive. The authors conclude by outlining a process by which international negotiations on climate control can proceed to an agreement that is both durable and feasible for all nations.

Crucial Issues in Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol: Asia and the World focuses on responses to climate change in the world''s most populous region. This book provides the most comprehensive insight to the climate change discourse within Asia to date by drawing on the diverse disciplines and experience of legal practitioners, climate change consultants, government officials and academics. Individual chapters address issues such as how the various Asian countries OCo highly disparate in their cultures, socio-economic conditions and political systems OCo are responding to climate change, the challenges of mitigating and adapting to climate change, and the effective implementation of the Kyoto Protocol in Asia. Sample Chapter(s). Foreword (37 KB). Chapter 1: Climate Disruption: Remaking the Agenda of Meas in Asia and the World (138 KB). Contents: Setting the Stage: Climate Disruption: Remaking the Agenda of MEAs in Asia and the World (N A Robinson); Reframing Global Warming: Toward a Strategic National Planning Framework (S V Valentine); Climate Change OCo Living in the Anthropocene (J Obbard); Clean Development Mechanism (CDM): An Overview of the Clean Development Mechanism in Southeast Asia (J Lin); CDM in China (X Yang & X Wang); Empirial Considerations in the Development of CDM Projects in Asia (W I Y Byun & F H C Chan); Making Markets Work OCo A Review of CDM Performance and the Need for Reform (C Streck & J Lin); Emissions Trading in the European Union and Asia: Regional Framework: The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme OCo Past, Present and Future (K Deketelaere & M Schurmans); Trends in Carbon Trading: Practical Lessons (A Beatty & E Williams); Effective Implementation of the Kyoto in Asia: Singapore''s National Climate Change Strategy (K Suresh); Japan: Achieving Its Kyoto Target (H Isozaki); Compliance Under the Kyoto Protocol and Its Implications for the Asian Region (M S Manguiat); Climate Change as a Threat to Peace & Security: Glacial Melting & Human Security in the Himalayas (K Khoday); The Kyoto Protocol and Beyond: A South Asian Perspective (A Gunawansa); Beyond Kyoto: Climate Change Including a Discussion of the AP6 Initiative from the Australian Perspective (M I Jeffery); Protecting Forests to Mitigate Global Climate Change (C streck). Readership: Environmental lawyers, policy makers, practitioners in CDM, tertiary students in environmental sciences.

This book assesses the effects on fossil fuel markets of climate change policies as agreed in Kyoto. This evaluation involves, as a reference case, projections for emissions, energy supply, demand, and prices in a world which does not adopt specific greenhouse policies. The impact of a future involvement of developing countries in an expanded climate change agreement is also analysed.

Global warming and climate change pose a dire threat to life. The Kyoto Protocol is the UN treaty committing signatories to dealing with climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This is a non-technical account of what inspired people to transform the dry language of this international climate change treaty into measurable improvements in people's lives in four countries (Brazil, Bangladesh, Indonesia and South Africa). These stories come to life through a kaleidoscope of photographs and children's artworks.

Carbon Politics and the Failure of Kyoto charts the framework and political evolution of the Kyoto Protocol negotiations and examines the ensuing failure of the international community to adequately address climate change. The focus is not on the science or consequences of climate change but on the political gamesmanship of the major players throughout the UNFCCC negotiation process. More than an updated history of the subject matter, this book provides a detailed study of the carbon targets which became the biggest influencing factor on the reaction of nations to Kyoto’s binding agreements. The book provides an in-depth analysis of the leading nations’ motives, including the US, China and Germany, in entering the negotiations, in particular, their economic interests. Despite the effort to combat climate change in politics that the negotiations represent, the book concludes that an agreement which requires almost 200 very different nations to agree on a single protocol is doomed to failure. The book offers a novel contribution to our understanding of this failure and suggests alternative frameworks and policies to tackle what is arguably the most complex political issue of our time.