International Climate Regime Beyond 2012

An assessment of policy options for future global climate governance, written by a team of leading experts from the European Union and developing countries. Global climate governance is at a crossroads. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol was merely a first step, and its core commitments expire in 2012. This book addresses three questions which will be central to any new climate agreement. What is the most effective overall legal and institutional architecture for successful and equitable climate politics? What role should non-state actors play, including multinational corporations, non-governmental organizations, public–private partnerships and market mechanisms in general? How can we deal with the growing challenge of adapting our existing institutions to a substantially warmer world? This important resource offers policy practitioners in-depth qualitative and quantitative assessments of the costs and benefits of various policy options, and also offers academics from wide-ranging disciplines insight into innovative interdisciplinary approaches towards international climate negotiations.

This book presents a comprehensive, authoritative and independent account of the rules, institutions and procedures governing the international climate change regime. Its detailed yet user-friendly description and analysis covers the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol, and all decisions taken by the Conference of the Parties up to 2003, including the landmark Marrakesh Accords. Mitigation commitments, adaptation, the flexibility mechanisms, reporting and review, compliance, education and public awareness, technology transfer, financial assistance and climate research are just some of the areas that are reviewed. The book also explains how the regime works, including a discussion of its political coalitions, institutional structure, negotiation process, administrative base, and linkages with other international regimes. In short, this book is the only current work that covers all areas of the climate change regime in such depth, yet in such a uniquely accessible and objective way.

A Brookings Institution Press and Yale Center for the Study of Globalization publication The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reflects the growing international consensus that the earth's climate is being changed by anthropogenic greenhouse gasses. Evidence presented by the IPCC and others points to the potential for increasingly dangerous weather, new disease outbreaks, regional water shortages, the loss of habitat and species, and other disturbing developments that could have profound social and economic impacts. Opinions on what should be done, however, remain sharply divided within and among countries. Though monumental in its efforts, the Kyoto Protocol has left much to be agreed upon and achieved, with the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide—the United States—rejecting it. In Global Warming: Looking Beyond Kyoto, some of the best-known and respected authorities in climate policy provide a comprehensive agenda for global collective action. Representing both industrialized and developing nations, the contributors present a thought-provoking examination of the economic, social, and political context of climate policy within their countries. With Kyoto's emissions targets set to expire in 2012, these authors call for a multilateral approach that goes beyond the mitigation-focused Kyoto policies, balancing them with strategies for adaptation. They also stress the importance of generating policies that work within a time frame commensurate with that of climate change itself. Informed, insightful, and even-handed, this book gives a new impetus to the increasingly important global climate policy debate. Contributors include R.K. Pachauri (Energy Resources Institute and the IPCC), Richard S. Lindzen (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Stefan Rahmstorf (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research), Stephen H. Schneider and Thomas Heller (Stanford University), Robert Mendelsohn and William D. Nordhaus (Yale University), Gernot Klepper and Sonja Peterson (Kiel Institute for World Economics), Robert N. Stavins (Harvard University), Alexander Golub (Environmental Defense), Howard Dalton (U.K. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), John Stone (Carleton University, Ottawa), Jyoti Parikh (Integrated Research and Action for Development), and Shen Longhai (China Energy Conservation Association)

"Defying all odds, governments participating in the global climate negotiations at Bali, Indonesia reached agreement on a roadmap towards a global climate change agreement to be completed by the end of 2009, ready to fill the gap when the commitments under the Kyoto Protocol expire in 2012. The contributions in this book examine some of the most difficult and controversial questions that global climate change negotiators face between now and the emergence of a 'Copenhagen Protocol' in 2009, and even beyond. Written by authoritative experts in the field, the various chapters are organised around the four principal elements in the Bali Action Plan - mitigation, adaptation, technology and financing - presented from different country, stakeholder and political perspectives."--BOOK JACKET.

This publication addresses climate change issues, national circumstances that impede countries from fully participating in the international debate and elements of a plausible climate regime from an Asian perspective. It identifies the institutional dimensions of climate change and, importantly, the linkages between climate change and sustainable development.--Publisher's description.

An examination of the current impasse in climate policy and the potential steps nations can take to reduce greenhouse gases.

Although there is no denial of climate justice, there has been a persistent lack of practical joined-up actions regarding the creation of an international climate institution. However, politicians and academic researchers have been working together to find solutions. This new book is an attempt to put forward constructive approaches to climate security and justice, building upon the inputs from the wide-ranging debates that took place at the CASS Forum on Climate Justice and the Carbon Budget Approach in Beijing (April 2010). The purpose of this prestigious international conference was to construct an international climate regime and to help promote climate justice. It also called on governments, particularly governments in developed countries, to bear the historical responsibility of climate change. Climate change is a controversial topic worldwide today and the international regime and corresponding actions will inevitably have a lasting and profound influence on the world economy and international politics. At its thirteenth session, held in Bali, Indonesia, at the end of 2007, the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted the Bali Action Plan, initiating a new process of negotiations on long-term cooperative actions under the Convention with the goal of reaching international agreements on an international climate regime beyond 2012 at the fifteenth session of the Conference to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, at the end of 2009. The key factors in the present international climate negotiations are a shared vision of global long-term cooperative actions, mitigation, adaptation, technology and finance, and their core issue is how to reach an agreement for equitable burden-sharing of obligations for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions or allocation of emission entitlements in accordance with the concrete conditions of various countries and to ensure the implementation of such an agreement under an appropriate international regime. As the largest developing country in the world, China plays an important role in international climate negotiations and is under increasing international pressure.The existing Kyoto Protocol model takes the level of emissions in 1990 as a base and determines the emission reduction obligations of each developed country through negotiation. The findings gathered together in this book break through the fixed pattern of thinking of the Kyoto Protocol and, based on the theory and methodology of the basic carbon emissions needed for human development, studies a carbon budget proposal for global greenhouse gas emission reductions. This proposal not only better embodies the principle of "e;common but differentiated responsibilities"e; established by the Climate Convention, but will also be able to realize global goals for mid- and long-term emission reductions. It represents a comprehensive proposal for developing a more equitable and more effective international climate regime.The CASS Forum on Climate Justice and the Carbon Budget Approach in Beijing (April 2010) was organised in association with the Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Konrad Adenauer Foundation and Misereor.