Increasing Participation and Compliance in International Climate Change Agreements

44 Pages Posted: 30 Nov 2002

See all articles by Robert N. Stavins

Robert N. Stavins

Harvard University - Harvard Kennedy School (HKS); Resources for the Future; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Scott Barrett

Johns Hopkins University - Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)

Date Written: November 2002

Abstract

Scientific and economic consensus increasingly points to the need for a credible and cost-effective approach to address the threat of global climate change, but the Kyoto Protocol to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change appears incapable of inducing significant participation and compliance. We assess the Protocol and thirteen alternative policy architectures that have been proposed, with particular attention to their respective abilities to induce participation and compliance. We find that those approaches that offer cost-effective mitigation are unlikely to induce significant participation and compliance, while those approaches that are likely to enjoy a reasonably high level of implementation by sovereign states are sorely lacking in terms of their anticipated cost effectiveness. The feasible set of policy architectures is thus limited to second-best alternatives. Much more attention needs to be given - both by scholarly research and by international negotiations - to aspects of future international climate agreements that will affect the degrees of participation and compliance that can reasonably be expected to be forthcoming.

Keywords: Compliance, Cost Effectiveness, Global Climate Change, International Agreements, Participation

JEL Classification: Q2, Q3, Q4

Suggested Citation

Stavins, Robert N. and Barrett, Scott, Increasing Participation and Compliance in International Climate Change Agreements (November 2002). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=351602 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.351602

Robert N. Stavins (Contact Author)

Harvard University - Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) ( email )

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Resources for the Future

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National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

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Scott Barrett

Johns Hopkins University - Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) ( email )

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United States
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202-663-5769 (Fax)

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