Law and Economics of International Climate Change Policy

The Kyoto Protocol is a landmark international agreement to tackle the problem of global climate change. Most operational details of the Protocol, however, were not decided in Kyoto but deferred to following conferences. This deferral of the details, while probably appropriate to initially reach the agreement, has become a major stepping stone for the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. This study elaborates in six essays on some of the most pressing policy problems of the Kyoto Protocol. These are the problems of 'hot air', the accounting of biological sources and sinks, and the modalities of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). A specific focus of this book is on how the issues of climate change and global sustainable forestry can be linked. The authors develop some new innovative solutions to achieve durability and political acceptability for CDM forest conservation projects, such as escrow account financing and bundling of forest conservation and bioenergy. The sum of fresh insights into up-to-date legal and political problems of the Kyoto Protocol makes this book indispensable for policy makers, negotiators, environmental activists, academics, and anyone involved in post-Kyoto strategies.