Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface and acknowledgements: a journey studying international environmental regulation
- Hard truths about global warming: a roadmap to reading this book
- Part I Setting the scene
- Part II The three dimensions of climate policy strategy
- 3 Regulating emissions part 1: the enthusiastic countries
- 4 Regulating emissions part 2: engaging reluctant developing countries
- 5 Promoting technological change
- 6 Preparing for a changing climate: adaptation, geoengineering, and triage
- Part III Putting it all together
- Notes
- References
- Index
3 - Regulating emissions part 1: the enthusiastic countries
from Part II - The three dimensions of climate policy strategy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface and acknowledgements: a journey studying international environmental regulation
- Hard truths about global warming: a roadmap to reading this book
- Part I Setting the scene
- Part II The three dimensions of climate policy strategy
- 3 Regulating emissions part 1: the enthusiastic countries
- 4 Regulating emissions part 2: engaging reluctant developing countries
- 5 Promoting technological change
- 6 Preparing for a changing climate: adaptation, geoengineering, and triage
- Part III Putting it all together
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
The problem of global warming requires policy efforts in three distinct areas. One is regulating emissions that are building up in the atmosphere and causing changes in the climate. A second is boosting investment in new knowledge – so that future efforts to control emissions are better informed and so that cheaper technologies for controlling emissions are closer at hand and easier to deploy. A third is bracing for the large (possibly catastrophic) changes in climate that may occur. Each of these problems is related, but each requires its own distinct policy strategy. In this part of the book – Chapters 3 to 6 – I look at each of these three policy challenges.
This chapter and the next are about the first and most central area for policy: regulating emissions. Experts also call this “mitigation.” The best place to start building a theory to predict how individual countries will mitigate is to look at two main groups of countries. This chapter is about the “enthusiastic countries,” and Chapter 4 is about “reluctant countries.”
If a reliable world government existed then it might not be so important to look at these two groups of countries separately. The world government would set policy and then firms and people across the planet would comply. But in the real world, international policy is trickier to craft because it hinges on what every nation, individually, is willing and able to implement.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Global Warming GridlockCreating More Effective Strategies for Protecting the Planet, pp. 61 - 82Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011