The International Climate Regime And Its Driving Forces Obstacles And Chances On The Way To A Global Response To The Problem Of Climate Change

The greenhouse effect is a vital process which is responsible for the heat on the earth?s surface. By consuming fossil fuels, clearing forests etc. humans aggravate this natural process. As additionally trapped heat exceeds the earth?s intake capacity this consequently leads to global warming. The current concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is already 30% higher compared to pre-industrial levels and unmanaged this development is likely to result in an increase of up to 6.4ø C towards the end of the century. Especially the poorest regions of the world are facing a double inequity as they a) will be hit earliest and hardest by the adverse impacts of climate change, and b) are least responsible for the stock of current concentrations in the atmosphere. Seeing this the application of the precautionary principle telling us ?to better be safe than sorry? appears to be imperative and makes traditional cost-benefit analysis become obsolete. Thus combating global warming has become one of the most important issues facing the world in the 21st century. The international climate regime is the main platform to further cooperation between nations and to tackle this problem. Since the first world climate conference in 1979 the international community of states pursues the goal of stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions. In 2009, the 15th COP of the UNFCCC aimed at achieving the final breakthrough with regard to framing new long-term mitigation commitments. However, the regime theory tells us that states behave as rational egoists and solely follow selfishly defined interests to maximize own profits. So it not only has to be assumed that just states with a favourable benefit-cost ratio will take the role of a ?pusher? in international climate negotiations but also that powerful states are more likely to reach a favourable outcome. Indeed the highly ineffective Kyoto Protocol, which amongst others had to deal with the exit of the United States, the creation of ?hot air? reductions and an overall lack of compliance incentives, has already shown the difficulties of creating an effective climate regime. In Copenhagen it became obvious that influential actors still do not seem to have an interest to significantly change their energy consumption patterns in order to reduce emissions. The majority of developing countries, politically prioritize the protection of their economic development which heavily depends on the use of cheap energy from fossil fuels. Especially China by no means intends to cut its impressive GDP growth figures to please international crowds. Meanwhile the hands of the US President on the international stage were once again tied by domestic restrictions. However, although it seemed that the long prevailing differences of interests between industrial and developing countries are more than ever insuperable, there is hope. A ?global race? towards renewable energy and related jobs has already started. Nations and international corporations are positioning themselves to take advantage of the inevitable transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. This could be the starting point for a sustainable bottom-up policy architecture on the international level replacing the current top-down approach.

This thoroughly updated and revised second edition of this foundational Handbook combines practical and theoretical analyses to cover a wide array of cutting edge issues in international environmental law (IEL). It provides a comprehensive view of the complexity of IEL, both as a field in its own right, and as part of the wider system of international law.

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.

Inhaltsangabe:Introduction: For more than two decades, scientific and political communities have debated whether and how to act on climate change. This discussion moved on. Today science is very clear about the magnitude of the risks imposed by unmanaged climate change: What we are doing is redifining where people could live and if we do that as a world than hundreds of million of people will move. Probably billions will move. We are talking about gambling the planet, we are talking about a radical change of the way in which human beings could live and where they could live and, indeed, how many of them. With regard to these risks the application of the precautionary principle telling us to better be safe than sorry appears to be imperative and makes traditional cost-benefit analysis become obsolete. Thus combating global warming has become one of the most important issues facing the world in the 21. century. As nobody would be immune from the transformation the planet faces, avoiding this gamble should, in theory, be in the interest of all nations. Unfortunately, a common response in the scale necessary is hard to organize. While the industrialized countries fear the costs of the transformation from a high-carbon to a low-carbon economy, it is the poorest people who are facing a double unequity as they 1. will be hit earliest and hardest by the adverse impacts of climate change, and 2. are least responsible for the stock of current concentrations in the atmosphere. This inequity consequently leads to a great sense of injustice in developing countries being asked cut emission, while knowing, that the developed world got rich on high-carbon growth. Without any doubt the outcome of this is a historical responsibility of industrialized countries to take over leadership in reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases. However, bearing in mind that by 2050, approximately eight out of nine billion people in the world will be living in developing nations, it is impossible to get down to emission levels needed without at the same time covering the developing world as well. Against this background international climate protection is a sociopolitical, economical, and ethical challenge, concerning all nations, which have to understand that they are a community based on the principle of mutual solidarity. The international climate regime is regarded as the main platform to further cooperation between nations in order to succesfully combat global [...]

Climate change poses one of the greatest challenges for human society in the twenty-first century, yet there is a major disconnect between our actions to deal with it and the gravity of the threat it implies. In a world where the fate of countries is increasingly intertwined, how should we think about, and accordingly, how should we manage, the types of risk posed by anthropogenic climate change? The problem is multi-faceted, and involves not only technical and policy specific approaches, but also questions of social justice and sustainability. In this volume the editors have assembled a unique range of contributors who together examine the intersection between the science, politics, economics and ethics of climate change. The book includes perspectives from some of the world's foremost commentators in their fields, ranging from leading scientists to political theorists, to high profile policymakers and practitioners. They offer a critical new approach to thinking about climate change, and help express a common desire for a more equitable society and a more sustainable way of life.

The SAGE Handbook of Global Policing examines and critically retraces the field of policing studies by posing and exploring a series of fundamental questions to do with the concept and institutions of policing and their relation to social and political life in today's globalized world. The volume is structured in the following four parts: Part One: Lenses Part Two: Social and Political Order Part Three: Legacies Part Four: Problems and Problematics. By bringing new lines of vision and new voices to the social analysis of policing, and by clearly demonstrating why policing matters, the Handbook will be an essential tool for anyone in the field.

Despite international initiatives such as the Earth Summit in 1992 and ongoing efforts to implement the Kyoto Protocol, human activities continue to register a destructive toll on the planetary environment. At root, research on global environmental risk seeks new pathways for reversing unsustainable trends, curtailing ongoing destructive activities, and creating a life-sustaining planet. This book takes stock of the distinctive challenges posed by global environmental risks, the capacity of knowledge systems to identify and characterize such risks, and the competence of human society to manage the unprecedented complexity. Particular attention trains on engaging, in ways conducive to enhancing social learning and adaptation, the large uncertainties inherent in these risks. Various chapters enlist different scales of analysis to explore the manifestation and causes of global environmental risks in all the diversity of their regional expression. Throughout, the editors and contributors accord prominence to the vulnerability of people and places to environmental degradation. Understanding vulnerability is a neglected key to assessing the nature of the risks and determining strategies for altering trajectories of threat. Global risk futures, the editors argue, are not intractable, and are still amenable to a risk-analysis enterprise that is democratic in principle, humanistic in concept, and geared to the realities that pertain to the particular societies, locales, and regions that will ultimately bear the risk.

At a time of so much politicized debate over the phenomenon of global warming, the second edition of The Future of the World's Climate places the discussion in a broader geological, paleo-climatic, and astronomical context. This book is a resource based on reviews of current climate science and supported by sound, accurate data and projections made possible by technological advances in climate modeling. Crucially, this title examines in detail a wide variety of aspects, including human factors like land use, expanding urban climates, and governmental efforts at mitigation, such as the Kyoto Protocol. It also examines large-scale, long-term changes in oceans, glaciers, and atmospheric composition, including tropospheric ozone and aerosols. Weather extremes are addressed, as well as the impact of catastrophic events such as massive volcanism and meteorite impacts. Readers will find a complete picture of the Earth's future climate, delivered by authors drawn from all over the world and from the highest regarded peer-reviewed groups; most are also contributors to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Assessment Reports. Winner of the 2012 ALSI Choice Award from Atmospheric Science Librarians International Each chapter has undergone major revisions and new content has been added throughout More than 200 tables, diagrams, illustrations, and photographs A cross-disciplinary resource encompassing the geosciences, life science, social science, and engineering