Sponsored and Conducted by the Harvard Project:

Presentation to and discussion with policy makers and business and NGO leaders

Hosted by Resources for the Future, Washington, DC

October 4, 2007

Presentation to and discussion with business leaders

Venue: Harvard Club of New York City

October 18, 2007

Presentation to and discussion with scholars and stakeholders

Hosted by the Harvard Kennedy School

October 24, 2007

Workshop with stakeholders from business and the NGO community

Hosted by The Centre (policy research institute in Brussels, Belgium)

November 16, 2007

Official side-event presentation

Thirteenth Conference of the Parties, Bali, Indonesia

December 10, 2007

Workshop with Japanese industry representatives

Hosted by the 21st Century Public Policy Institute (affiliated with Keidanren), Tokyo

March 25, 2008

Presentation to scholars and government offi cials

Hosted by Tsinghua University, School of Economics and Management, Beijing

March 27, 2008

Seminar discussion with scholars and government officials

Hosted by the Research Centre for Sustainable Development, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing March 28, 2008

The nations of the world confront a tremendous challenge in designing and implementing an international policy response to the threat of global climate change that is scientifically sound, economically rational, and politically pragmatic. It is broadly acknowledged that the relatively wealthy, developed countries are responsible for a majority of the anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) that have already accumulated in the atmosphere, but developing countries will emit more GHGs over this century than the currently industrialized nations if no efforts are taken to alter their course of development. The architecture of a robust international climate change policy will need to take into account the many dimensions and consequences of this issue with respect to the environment, the economy, energy, and development.

The Kyoto Protocol—which builds directly on the foundation laid by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)—represented a first step toward addressing this long-term, global problem. Now, the international policy community needs to identify the next step, both in terms of setting sensible climate-related goals and in designing effective policies to achieve those goals. The Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements aims to aid and inform that process through a diverse set of research initiatives in Europe, the United States, China, India, Japan, and Australia. This book is a product of that research.

Drawing upon lessons from experience with the Kyoto Protocol (Aldy and Stavins, Chapter 1; and Schmalensee) and insights from economics, political science, international relations, legal scholarship, and other disciplines, the contributors to this volume have set forth a range of ideas about how best to construct a post-2012 international climate change policy regime.

Diverse aspects of human activity around the world result in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that contribute to global climate change. Emissions come from coal-fired power plants in the United States, diesel buses in Europe, rice paddies in Asia, and the burning of tropical forests in South America. These emissions will affect the global climate for generations, because most greenhouse gases reside in the atmosphere for decades to centuries. Thus, the impacts of global climate change pose serious, long-term risks.

Global climate change is the ultimate global-commons problem: Because GHGs mix uniformly in the upper atmosphere, damages are completely independent of the location of emissions sources. Thus, a multinational response is required. To address effectively the risks of climate change, efforts that engage most if not all countries will need to be undertaken. The greatest challenge 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.