From Kyoto to What?

The global climate change conference held in Kyoto last December marked
another step on the road to limiting green-house gas emissions. Economist
Robert Stavins argues, however, that the Kyoto protocol may be a step
backward. Calling the agreement "a flawed framework for action," Stavins,
who is faculty chair of the Center''s ENRP, is eager to ensure that the
November conference on climate change in Buenos Aires corrects the missteps
of the Kyoto agreement.
According to Stavins, the Kyoto agreement was, on the one hand, too narrow,
because only 38 of the 160 countries participating in the meeting signed
the protocol, and on the other, perhaps too ambitious. The protocol focused
on short-term targets for a small group of industrialized countries rather
than what Stavins calls the "long-term development of institutions and
approaches."
Such a long-term strategy would develop a detailed plan for allowing
countries and individual polluters to trade emissions permits. It would
commit developing nations to reducing emissions, a particularly important step since the U.S. Senate has said that it will not ratify a climate
change treaty that did not include commitments by those countries.
John Holdren, faculty chair of STTP and a member of the President''s
Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, takes a somewhat more
positive view of the Kyoto outcome. Long-term approaches that engage
developing as well as industrialized countries are certainly needed, he
says, but those long-term steps would be even more delayed without the
commitments made by industrialized countries in Kyoto to take some first
steps. Holdren agrees with Stavins about the importance of starting to actually
implement some low-cost approaches to emissions reductions. The problem,
argues Holdren, is not so much that the Kyoto targets are too ambitious but
rather that targets of any sort do not mean much in the absence of measures
to move in the right direction. As of now, even the very modest R&D
initiatives and tax incentives proposed in the administration''s 1999 budget
do not seem likely to be approved by Congress. Ultimately, the necessary emissions reductions will be achievable only with the help of a carbon tax
or a system of emissions caps and tradable permits. Waiting until 2008 even
to begin trying one of these approaches, as currently planned, is not a
promising way to reach either the Kyoto goals or anything beyond. *