Introduction

Human activity is causing irreversible harm to the climate system and the global environment. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2007), the earth's average surface temperature has increased by 0.7 degrees Celsius (°C) in the last century. Observable indicators of this change include rising sea level, declining snow cover, glacier melt, and so forth. Avoiding a future catastrophic climate crisis will require the global community to establish a valid and effective global climate policy architecture. Global emissions will have to be brought rapidly under control to stabilize atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations at roughly 450 parts per million (ppm) carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent—the stabilization target thought to be necessary to prevent global mean temperatures from exceeding the widely endorsed 2°C threshold (Scientific Expert Group 2007; Stern 2006). To achieve this target, any international climate regime ought to balance considerations of efficiency and equity—that is, it ought to solve the emission reductions, economic growth, and humanitarian problems of climate change at the same time.

As the first step in the international community's battle with climate change, the Kyoto Protocol—after endless negotiations over the last two decades—has failed to deliver aggressive emission reductions; on the contrary, global emissions are still rising. Given the lessons from past Kyoto negotiations, we can lay out the key challenges for a new post-Kyoto climate regime.