Quotas In International Environmental Agreements

Quotas have been used in international environmental agreements for at least a century and, in tandem with incentive approaches, should continue to be crucial to realizing a sustainable environment. This text is a critical examination of quotas both as regulatory tools and as products of negotiation. It reviews the main features of environmental problems, the regulatory options and criteria used to judge them, and the various ways of explaining negotiated outcomes. Quotas in the management of fisheries, other resources, freshwater and marine pollution, and air pollution are also described. Selected examples are considered in detail to provide an understanding of how quotas were developed in scientific, political, economic and social context. An assessment of the key features of quotas in practice leads to the identification of an emerging approach, the negotiation of constrained local quotas. The approach is a practical way to balance efficiency and fairness in complex negotiations, without sacrificing environmental effectiveness.

International environmental agreements provide a basis for countries to address ecological problems on a global scale. However, countries are heterogeneous with respect to their economic structures and to the problems relating to the environment that they encounter. Therefore, economic externalities and global environmental conflicts are common and can cause problems in implementation and compliance with international agreements. Economics of International Environmental Agreements illuminates those issues and factors that might cause some countries or firms to take different positions on common problems. This book explores why international environmental agreements deal with some problems successfully but fail with others. The chapters address issues that are global in nature, such as: transboundary pollution, provision of global public goods, individual preferences of inequality- aversion, global cooperation, self-enforcing international environmental agreements, emission standards, abatement costs, environmental quota, technology agreement and adoption and international institutions. They examine the necessary conditions for the improved performance of international environmental agreements, how cooperation among countries can be improved and the incentives that can be created for voluntary compliance with international environmental agreements. This text is of great importance to academics, students and policy makers who are interested in environmental economics, policy and politics, as well as environmental law.

This report examines various cases to analyze the use of trade measures in environmental agreements and assembles a series of common issues and lessons learned.

Reference tool to facilitate broader understanding and awareness of relationship between environment and trade which can then become the basis on which fair and environmentally sustainable policies and trade flows are built.

From Exception to Promotion: Re-Thinking the Relationship between International Trade and Environmental Law tells a new, unconventional story of the nexus between international trade and environmental law - a story in which the keyword is synergy rather than conflict, and where the trade regime was always meant for something greater than simply trade liberalization. This ‘something greater’ was peace in the first half of the 20th century. Today, it is sustainable development, environmental protection, and social inclusion. Environmental protection is therefore neither antithetical to the overarching purpose of the trading system nor simply a ‘non-trade’ issue to be incorporated within the trade regime, but rather part of its very nature and purpose. By telling this ‘untold’ story of the nexus, this book intends to raise historical awareness and open a constructive discussion on the future of the trade regime and of international economic law governance at large.

International environmental agreements provide a practical basis for countries to address environmental issues on a global scale. This book explores the workings and outcomes of these agreements, and analyses key questions of why some problems are dealt with successfully and others ignored. By examining fundamental policies and issues in environmental protection this text gives an easily comprehensible introduction to international environmental agreements, and discusses problems in three areas: air, water and on land. It traces the history of agreements in broad thematic areas related to long-distance air pollution, ozone-depleting and greenhouse gases, ocean management, biological diversity, agricultural plant diversity and forest stewardship. Drawing on experts in their respective fields, this book provides an insightful evaluation of the successes and failures, and analysis of the reasons for this. Concluding with an insightful examination of research to show how performance of agreements can be improved in the future, this volume is a vital contribution to our understanding of the politics associated with establishing international environmental consensus. International Environmental Agreements will be of interest to scholars, students and researchers in global environmental politics, international relations and political science. Steinar Andresen is Senior Research Fellow at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Norway, and formerly professor at the Dept. of Political Science, University of Oslo. Elin Lerum Boasson is Research Fellow at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Norway. Geir Hønneland is Research Director at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute and adjunct professor at the University of Tromsø.

This volume provides an up-to-the-minute review of the open economy approach to analyzing environmental problems and policies, which has produced a wealth of research over the past decade. It contains non-technical, issue-oriented, and comprehensive surveys written by specialists in international and environmental economics. The volume will appeal to scholars and students of economics and political science.

Climate change is one of the major environmental concern of many countries in the world. Negotiations to control potential climate changes have been taking place, from Rio to Kyoto, for the last five years. There is a widespread consciousness that the risk of incurring in relevant economic and environmental losses due to climate change is high. Scientific analyses have become more and more precise on the likely impacts of climate change. According to the Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, current trends in greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions may indeed cause the average global temperature to increase by 1-3. 5 °C over the next 100 years. As a result, sea levels are expected to rise by 15 to 95 em and climate zones to shift towards the poles by 150 to 550 km in mid latitudes. In order to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change, the IPCC report concludes that a stabilization of atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide - one of the major GHGs - at 550 parts per million by volume (ppmv) is recommended. This would imply a reduction of global emissions of about 50 per cent with respect to current levels. In this context, countries are negotiating to achieve a world-wide agreement on GHGs emissions control in order to stabilize climate changes. Despite the agreement on targets achieved in Kyoto, many issues still remain unresolved.