International Relations and Global Climate Change

Global Environmental Accord: Strategies for Sustainability and Institutional Innovation Nazli Choucri, editor Nazli Choucri, editor, Global Accord: Environmental Challenges and International Responses Peter M. Haas, Robert O. Keohane, and Marc A. Levy, editors, Institutions for the Earth: Sources of Effective International Environmental Protection Ronald B. Mitchell, Intentional Oil Pollution at Sea: Environmental Policy and Treaty Compliance Robert O. Keohane and Marc A. Levy, editors, Institutions for Environmental Aid: Pitfalls and Promise Oran R. Young, editor, Global Governance: Drawing Insights from the Environmental Experience Jonathan A. Fox and L. David Brown, editors, The Struggle for Accountability: The World Bank, NGOs, and Grassroots Movements David G. Victor, Kal Raustiala, and Eugene Skolnikoff, editors, The Implementation and Effectiveness of International Environmental Commitments: Theory and Practice Mostafa K. Tolba with Iwona Rummel Bulska, Global Environmental Diplomacy: Negotiating Environmental Agreements for the World, 1973–1992 Karen T. Litfin, editor, The Greening of Sovereignty in World Politics Edith Brown Weiss and Harold K. Jacobson, editors, Engaging Countries: Strengthening Compliance with International Environmental Accords Oran R. Young, editor, The Effectiveness of International Environmental Regimes: Causal Connections and Behavioral Mechanisms Ronie Garcia-Johnson, Exporting Environmentalism: U.S. Multinational Chemical Corporations in Brazil and Mexico Robert G. Darst, Smokestack Diplomacy: Cooperation and Conflict in EastWest Environmental Politics Urs Luterbacher and Detlef F. Spinz, editors, International Relations and Global Climate Change Edward L. Miles, Arild Underdal, Steinar Andresen, Jørgen Wettestad, Jon Birger Skjærseth, and Elaine M. Carlin, Environmental Regime Effectiveness: Confronting Theory with Evidence

International Relations and Global Climate Change

edited by Urs Luterbacher and Detlef F. Sprinz

The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England

 2001 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. This book was set in Sabon by Achorn Graphic Services, Inc. and was printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data International relations and global climate change / edited by Urs Luterbacher and Detlef F. Sprinz. p. cm. — (Global environmental accords series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-262-12240-5 (hc. : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-262-62149-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Climatic changes—Government policy. 2. Global environmental change. I. Luterbacher, Urs. II. Sprinz, Detlef F. III. Series. QC981.8.C5 I58 2001 363.738′74526—dc21 2001030575

Contents

Preface

vii

I

Introduction

1

1

Problems of Global Environmental Cooperation Urs Luterbacher and Detlef F. Sprinz

2

The History of the Global Climate Change Regime Daniel Bodansky

II

Regime Creation: Concepts and Theories

3

Classical Theories of International Relations Ian H. Rowlands

43

4

Domestic Politics and Global Climate Policy Detlef F. Sprinz and Martin Weiß

67

5

Nonstate Actors in the Global Climate Regime Kal Raustiala

6

Principles of Justice in the Context of Global Climate Change 119 Matthew Paterson

7

Climate Change, Equity, and International Negotiations Ellen Wiegandt

III Regime Creation: Methods 8

3 23

41

151

Modeling Global Climate Negotiations 153 Frank Grundig, Hugh Ward, and Ethan P. Zorick

95

127

vi

9

Contents

Simulation Models, Global Environmental Change, and Policy 183 Urs Luterbacher

IV Regime Design: Implementation, Compliance, and Effectiveness 199 10 International Law and the Design of a Climate Change Regime 201 Daniel Bodansky 11 Institutional Aspects of Implementation, Compliance, and Effectiveness 221 Ronald B. Mitchell V The Global Climate Change Regime in the International Regulatory Domain: Comparisons and Conclusions 245 12 Comparing the Global Climate Regime with Other Global Environmental Accords 247 Detlef F. Sprinz 13 The Organization of World Trade and the Climate Regime Urs Luterbacher and Carla Norrlo¨f 14 Conclusions 297 Urs Luterbacher and Detlef F. Sprinz Appendix 309 References 311 Index 339

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Since the early 1990s, we have witnessed the growth of a body of knowledge on global climate change policies. Because climate change by its very nature is a global problem where responsibilities are difficult to attribute and where activities in one country might affect faraway regions, mitigating global climate change can only be achieved efficiently through international collaboration. For this reason, scholars of international relations have devoted considerable attention to this topic. Their various conceptual, theoretical, and methodological approaches to the problems in international cooperation raised by global climate change contribute to a better understanding of the achievements accomplished to date as well as the challenges ahead. This book synthesizes the knowledge provided by scholars in the field of international studies in accessible format, particularly for international relations students and also for public policymakers and members of the interested general public. The recently elected Bush administration in the United States has declared itself against the Kyoto Protocol and the perspective of deep cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases. Although many European governments appear to be more willing to engage in policies proposed by the protocol, none of them is irreversibly committed to such courses of action. These current diplomatic difficulties clearly emphasize the necessity to analyze and synthesize recent scholarly knowledge about ways to envisage and suggest cooperative strategies on climate change. While the history of global climate change negotiations is an important component of the present study, it is the analysis of the configuration of international actors, their preferences, and the problems encountered in bargaining on global climate agreements that we emphasize in this book. Within this

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general framework, we also deal with the issues of effectiveness and compliance raised by the United Nations Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol and address the issue of the relationship between climate change policies and other global accords. Moreover, we are concerned about how well these policies fit into the existing bundle of international cooperative arrangements, in particular with the international trade regime defined by the World Trade Organization. In essence, much of what we cover in this book could serve as a template for analyzing other global environmental agreements from the various perspectives of scholarship in international relations. Thus, it is not the purpose of this book to provide a clear-cut answer to the question of what the future global climate policy will be and to argue about how desirable it is. We want, instead, to give the reader the scholarly background and tools necessary to analyze global environmental policy. When this project was started in mid-1994, roughly a year before the first Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (1995), the concept for this book was developed as a joint venture between the coeditors Urs Luterbacher of the Graduate Institute of International Studies (Geneva, Switzerland) and Detlef F. Sprinz of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (Potsdam, Germany). We began with a compact review of what the global climate policies looked like and organized two authors’ meetings in Geneva and Potsdam for this purpose. These meetings helped to further refine and develop the original structure drafted by the coeditors and resulted in two editions of a Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) report in 1996. These were then distributed to the participants of the Second Conference of the Parties that year in Geneva. The following year, we had the good fortune to receive encouragement for the development of this manuscript for the MIT Press series Global Environmental Accord: Strategies for Sustainability and Institutional Innovation, edited by Nazli Choucri. An anonymous initial reviewer provided us with a range of constructive suggestions, which we complemented with additional ideas. As a consequence, the original chapters were expanded to their present length, and new chapters were added to put climate change policy into the larger context of other global environmental and economic regimes. Our perspective evolved and led us to

Preface

ix

conceive of the book not as a collection of individual chapters but as a more coherent whole. We therefore decided to write links between the various chapters, showing how one type of question led naturally to another. As a result of these revisions, a more balanced book emerged. Any project conducted over such a long time span becomes indebted to many persons. For brevity’s sake we will acknowledge only some of them. Without the ‘‘long-distance runner’’ qualities of our authors, this book would have never materialized. They remained faithful and cheerful to the end, even when we pressed them to meet deadlines and when we insisted on the fine-tuning needed to minimize overlap between chapters. Because all research and scholarly writing depends on support, we graciously acknowledge the financial contribution and vision of Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), who made this book an institute project. The generous funding of PIK allowed us to hold the two authors’ meeting and to send observers to the various Conferences of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Many colleagues provided constructive criticism and help throughout the evolution of this book. We acknowledge in particular the detailed comments by Thomas Gehring, Carsten Helm, Harold Jacobson, James Morrow, Benito Mu¨ller, Sebastian Oberthu¨r, Steve Rayner, Arild Underdal, David Victor, and four anonymous reviewers for the MIT Press. We also thank the participants of our panel on International Responses to Global Climate Change at the 36th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association (21–25 February 1995, Chicago, IL), and the participants to the First Open Meeting of the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change Community (01–03 June 1995, Duke University, Durham, NC), for their comments and encouragement. No collaborative project succeeds without the helpful hands and minds of good secretarial support and research assistants. Denise Ducroz arranged the authors’ meeting in Geneva and provided secretarial support on early drafts of the manuscripts. Ursula Binder, Petra Schellnhuber, and Andreas Wahl assisted with the Potsdam authors’ meeting. The production and redrafting of the PIK reports relied on the never-ending enthusiasm of Sarah Huber, Jan Tiessen and Martin Weiss of the Potsdam Institute and Carla Norrlo¨f at the Graduate Institute of International

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Studies helped with enthusiasm and dedication with the completion of the final manuscript for The MIT Press. We got considerable help and comfort on the publishing side from our editors at The MIT Press. We happily acknowledge the unwavering support of Nazli Choucri and Clay Morgan, who advanced the book project by providing advice, encouraging the book editors, and helping resolve the small and larger challenges that emerge in the process of publishing a book. Nazli kindly suggested the idea to analyze climate change policies within the larger context of other global environmental agreements; this idea subsequently led to an additional chapter on looking at climate change policies within the larger context of the global trade regime. Clay ably kept the book on track. His quiet and polite manners gave the whole finalizing and publishing process a stable direction, and the book editors only wish that the planning and assembling of the book could have been as smooth as publishing it turned out to be. For the final oversight of the manuscript editing and the proofs, we acknowledge the kind assistance provided by Sandra Minkkinen. The details of climate policy will inevitably change over the coming years. The present difficulties will certainly generate new proposals and ideas, but the basic tools and methodologies to analyze global climate change should remain more constant. We trust that the reader will share a variation on Herder’s dictum that we learn not only from the particular case under investigation but also about the larger theme of the global environmental policy framework. Geneva and Potsdam March 2001