The adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in December 1997 was a major achievement in the endeavour to tackle the problem of global climate change at the dawn of the 21st century. After many years of involvement in the negotiation process, the book's two internationally recognised authors now offer the international community a first hand and inside perspective of the debate on the Kyoto Protocol. The book provides a comprehensive scholarly analysis of the history and content of the Protocol itself as well as of the economic, political and legal implications of its implementation. It also presents a perspective for the further development of the climate regime. These important features make this book an indispensable working tool for policy makers, negotiators, academics and all those actively involved and interested in climate change issues in both the developed and developing world.

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 The United States has formally withdrawn from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol; other key nations are facing difficulty in meeting their Kyoto commitments; and developing countries face no limit on their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

Carbon Politics and the Failure of Kyoto charts the framework and political evolution of the Kyoto Protocol negotiations and examines the ensuing failure of the international community to adequately address climate change. The focus is not on the science or consequences of climate change but on the political gamesmanship of the major players throughout the UNFCCC negotiation process. More than an updated history of the subject matter, this book provides a detailed study of the carbon targets which became the biggest influencing factor on the reaction of nations to Kyoto’s binding agreements. The book provides an in-depth analysis of the leading nations’ motives, including the US, China and Germany, in entering the negotiations, in particular, their economic interests. Despite the effort to combat climate change in politics that the negotiations represent, the book concludes that an agreement which requires almost 200 very different nations to agree on a single protocol is doomed to failure. The book offers a novel contribution to our understanding of this failure and suggests alternative frameworks and policies to tackle what is arguably the most complex political issue of our time.

A concise and authoritative guide to the evolution, terms and implications of the Kyoto Protocol, this book provides an economic and political account of key policy debates and their outcome. It also explains the meaning of provisions on emissions trading and other flexibility mechanisms, and provides a quantitative analysis using the emissions trading model devised by the RIIA's Energy and Environmental Programme.

The Kyoto Protocol became law in February 2005--eight years after its conception as a framework for reducing emissions and a full four years after the United States abandoned it. But while President George W. Bush embarrassed much of the scientific community by challenging the veracity of the greenhouse effect, and thus the impetus for Kyoto, officials elsewhere expressed far different concerns. Reading the Kyoto Protocol explores their qualms and objections to everything from Kyoto's controversial policies on emissions trading to the question of a "post-Kyoto era." Contributors include internationally known philosophers, researchers, and environmentalists.

According to the contributors of this volume, a wide range of options in addition to the Kyoto Protocol need to be considered to promote long-term climate protection and bridge the growing divide among nations over how to take action. This compilation explores some of the best alternatives, with special attention to options that promote participation by both industrialized and developing countries.

I had the pleasure of participating at the two conferences which form the basis of this book: as a chairman at the 2007 The Hague Conference 'Tackling Climate Change - An appraisal of the Kyoto Protocol and options for the future' and as a speaker at the 2006 Siena Conference' The Kyoto Protocol and beyond: a legal perspective'. I would like to thank my colleagues Wybe Douma, Leonardo Massai and Massimiliano Montini for those opportunities, and although I was, unfortu nately, unable to contribute a paper to this book due to time constraints, I am glad to be able to say a few words on the issue by means of this foreword. The timing of the two conferences was well chosen: the period between the Siena Conference (June 2006) and The Hague Conference (March 2007) encapsu lated perfectly the period of the drafting, the presentation and the approval of the 'Integrated Energy and Climate Change Package', as presented by the European th Commission on the 10 of January 2007 and as approved by the Spring European th th Council of the 8 and 9 of March 2007. The importance of the Commission's package and the Council's conclusions must be strongly emphasized. They set, at the EU level, legally binding targets regarding the reduction of greenhouse gas of energy, and biofuels.