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 The United States has formally withdrawn from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol; other key nations are facing difficulty in meeting their Kyoto commitments; and developing countries face no limit on their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.

In 1997 delegates to the third session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), agreed by consensus to adopt the Kyoto Protocol under which industrialized countries would reduce their combined greenhouse gas emissions by an average 5.2% from their 1992 levels. To have any hope of achieving these emission reductions and averting global climate catastrophe will require a fundamental shift in the way in which energy is produced and the way it is used. Inter-linkages examines the Climate Change Convention in the context of potential synergies and conflicts that could arise between it and the World Trade Organization, international investment agreements and private and contractual trade law.

This impressive new collection couldn't come at a better time. With global warming now becoming physically noticeable and the Kyoto treaty stalling in its efforts to get the developed world on board, a look at the economic factors of global warming is very much welcome.With contributions from distinguished authors and covering everything you need to know about global warming and its financial implications, this fascinating book will appeal across the political and scientific spectrum.

Edited by the United Nations Development Programme, this collection of papers offers a new rationale and framework for international development cooperation. Its main argument is that in actual practice development cooperation has already moved beyond aid. In the name of aid (i.e. assistance to poor countries), we are today dealing with issues such as the ozone hole, global climate change, HIV, drug trafficking and financial volatility. All of these issues are not really poverty-related. Rather, they concern global housekeeping: ensuring an adequate provision of global public goods.

In this illuminating history of global warming, a scientific idea that fills today's headlines, Christianson blends the research of a scholar with a novelist's storytelling skills, unfolding his epic through a series of elegantly linked stories.

-- Art Small, University of California, Berkeley

This unique collection of primary documents examines the evolution of concern about environmental degradation, pollution, and resource conservation in America from the colonial period to the end of the twentieth century. These documents, ranging from government reports and court cases to the writings of naturalists, economists, and novelists, offer a broad array of perspectives about such major environmental issues as population growth, air pollution, land and water use, toxins and waste disposal, and the use of timber and mining resources. The historical introductions to each part and to each document provide a context for analyzing each document and will aid readers of the book to better understand the various debates over how, why and if our environment needs to be protected. Students and other interested in environmental problems are encouraged to consider all sides of these complex issues before drawing their own conclusions.