Harvard Kennedy School debate

Rob N Stavins and Robert C Stowe

The views expressed here are personal and do not necessarily represent the views of the British Government.

Climate change is the ultimate “global-commons” problem.  Individuals, corporations, communities, and countries each use a common resource—the ability of the atmosphere to store greenhouse gases (GHGs). In fact, they over-use that resource, because the costs of doing so (associated with warming of the Earth’s surface) do not accrue except to a trivial degree to those who emit the gases. Greenhouse gases mix uniformly in the upper atmosphere, and thus damages are completely independent of the location of emissions sources.

Because climate change is a “global commons” problem, a multinational response is required.  No one country—even very large emitters—can solve the problem by acting alone. The greatest challenge to collective action lies in designing an international policy architecture that can guide such efforts.  We take “international policy architecture” to refer to the basic nature and structure of an international agreement or other multilateral (or bilateral) climate regime.

The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) marked the first meaningful attempt by the community of nations to curb GHG emissions.  This agreement, though a significant first step, is not sufficient for the longer-term task ahead.  Some observers support the policy approach embodied in Kyoto and would like to see it extended—perhaps with modifications—beyond the first commitment period, which ends in 2012.  Others maintain that a fundamentally new approach is required.

Whether one thinks the Kyoto Protocol was a good first step or a bad first step, everyone agrees that a second step is required.  A way forward is needed for the post-2012 period. The Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements was launched with this imperative in mind.  The Project is a global, multiyear, multidisciplinary effort intended to help identify the key design elements of a scientifically sound, economically rational, and politically pragmatic post-2012 international policy architecture for addressing the threat of climate change.

The Harvard Project has identified three types of possible international architectures. A post-Kyoto architecture might include any of these—or some combination. The first category—targets and timetables—is the most familiar.  At its heart is a centralized international agreement, top-down in form.  This is the basic architecture underlying the Kyoto Protocol: essentially country-level quantitative emission targets established over specified time frames.  The second category—harmonized domestic policies—focuses more on national policy actions than on goals and is less centralized than the first set of approaches.  In this case, countries agree on similar domestic policies.  This reflects the view that national governments have much more control over their countries’ policies than over their emissions.  The third approach is coordinated and unilateral national policies. This category includes the least centralized approaches that we have considered—essentially bottom-up policies that rely on domestic politics to drive incentives for participation and compliance.

Looking forward through an institutional lens, it is likely that an effective policy architecture for global climate change will involve some combination of a geographically comprehensive, binding agreement (treaty) concluded under the auspices of the UNFCCC; collaborations among smaller groups of large emitters, such as the G20 or the G8 (Gleneagles process); and bilateral arrangements—most importantly between the United States and China, which together account for some 50% of GHG emissions.

The international community is now arguably in the most critical phase for climate change policy since the problem was identified. Emissions continue to grow, and the impacts of growing concentrations of GHGs are no longer speculative. The international climate negotiations have an explicit goal of seriously initiating, if not completing, a new agreement in Copenhagen.  The new U.S. President, with his very capable team, is much more engaged in climate change policy than the United States has been in recent years. There are signs that China—now the world’s largest emitter—is seriously considering options for some kind of negotiated action. In sum, there is both the need and the potential for great progress in the near term.

There will be great focus on drafting text and on various aspects of the negotiations in the next nine months, and these discussions will guide international climate change policy for years—perhaps decades— to come. It is vital that they move in a direction that is scientifically sound, economically rational, and politically pragmatic—and that any deal be ratified by the United States, China, India, and other key nations. Any other outcome would set global climate negotiations back immeasurably.  The G20 London Summit can play a very important role in securing the success of the international climate change policy process.

Posted at 17:56 25 March 2009 by London Summit  |  Comments[0]