The collapse of the Kyoto Protocol and the struggle to slow global warming / David G. Victor.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Victor, David G.

Contributor:

Council on Foreign Relations.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Global warming--Government policy.

Global warming.

Greenhouse gas mitigation--Government policy.

Greenhouse gas mitigation.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992)--Protocols, etc. (1997 December 11).

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Physical Description:

xiv, 178 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, [2001]

Summary:

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. In this clear and cogent book. Victor explains why the Kyoto Protocol is unlikely to enter into force and how its failure will offer the opportunity to establish a more realistic alternative.

Kyoto's fatal flaw, Victor argues, is that it can work only if emission 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 "emission trading." whereby nations could offset the need for rapid cuts in their own emissions by buying emission 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 polities -- 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.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Crisis and Opportunity 3

Chapter 2 Kyoto's Fantasyland: Allocating the Atmosphere 25

Chapter 3 Monitoring and Enforcement 55

Chapter 4 Rethinking the Architecture 75

Chapter 5 After Kyoto: What Next? 109

Appendix The Causes and Effects of Global Warming: A Brief Survey of the Science 117.

Notes:

"A Council on Foreign Relations book."

Includes bibliographical references (pages [155]-171) and index.

ISBN:

0691088705

OCLC:

45202121