Tag Archives: carbon

How Negotiators at Durban Can Agree Emissions Targets

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The parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change are meeting once again in Durban, South Africa, from November 28 to December 9.  The period covered by the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012 and the clock is running out on negotiations for a successor agreement.  Progress at Copenhagen two years ago and Cancun one year ago was slow.   Negotiations have been blocked by a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. The United States is at loggerheads with the developing world, especially China–now the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG)–and India.   read more

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How to Set Greenhouse Gas Emission Targets for All Countries

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The effects of a changing global climate show up gradually, decade by decade.The effects of a changing US political climate have also been showing up gradually, year by year.A watershed was reached June 25, when the US Congress for the first time approved a bill to limit emissions of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs), by a vote of 219 to 212.But the Senate hurdle will be tougher.  The attempt to address Climate Change still has a very long way to go.

 

The problem

 

Climate Change is of course a global externality.Due to the free-rider problem, no single country, especially the United States, is likely to act on its own.The best solution is a multilateral treaty in which all countries commit to serious action together. In December of this year, a Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change will meet in Copenhagen, in the hope of negotiating a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol. read more

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Anti-Shirking Import Penalties in US Climate Change Bills Could Backfire

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 So both the Democratic and Republican parties have officially nominated their candidates.  Remarkably — from the vantage point of just a few years ago – both Senators McCain and Obama are on record as supporting strong action for aggressive cuts in US emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs).   In June 2008, the floor manager’s version of the Lieberman-Warner bill  — S. 2192: America’s Climate Security Act of 2007, which would cut emissions more than 50% by 2050 — came close to passing the Senate.   Some think that with the likely Democratic gain in Senate seats in November, and a more supportive White House, a form of the bill may well pass next year.    

(Incidentally, the July Snowmass presentations regarding Integrated Assessment models of the effects of such emission-reduction policy plans, which I plugged in my preceding blog post, are now accessible to the public.)

 

But issues of competitiveness and how to address it have risen to the top in the climate change policy debate among politicians.      The Lieberman-Warner bill – would have required the president to determine what countries have taken comparable action to limit GHG emissions;  for imports of covered goods from covered countries, the importer would then have had to buy international reserve allowances – equivalent to a tariff.  (The same with some of the bill’s competitors such as the Bingaman-Specter “Low Carbon Economy Act” of 2007.)  read more

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