Order out of Chaos: Public and Private Rules for Managing Carbon

摘要

In many respects, the Kyoto Protocol has been a policy failure. It has not achieved the necessary reductions to avoid the "dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system" identified in the 1992 Framework Convention.It created a market for carbon offsets of dubious efficacy. Although these less-than-ambitious targets for reduction were extended for a second commitment period at the Doha conference in December 2012, a number of developed nations refused to renew their commitments, leaving only 15 percent of global emissions covered by the Protocol.The Protocol is also waning in political importance: states are moving toward a number of different forums to pursue policy goals. Some of these are alternative intergovernmental forums, such as the Major Economies Forum or the World Bank. Others are forms of private authority: situations in which private actors (including firms and NGOs) are serving as both de facto and de jure global rule makers.