Chapter 13
Policies, Instruments and Co-operative Arrangements
Box 13.6 Elements for climate change agreements31 A number of elements are commonly incorporated in existing – and proposals for new – international climate change agreements. These include: Goals: Most agreements establish objectives that implementation is supposed to achieve. In the climate context, a variety of goals have been proposed, including those related to emissions reductions, stabilization of GHG concentrations, avoiding “dangerous” interference with climate, technology transfer and sustainable development. Goals can be set at varying degrees of specificity. Participation: All agreements are undertaken between specific groups of participants. Some have a global scope while others focus on a more limited set of parties (e.g. regional in nature or limited to arrangements between private sector partners). Obligations can be uniform across participants, or differentiated among them. Actions: All agreements call for some form of action. Actions vary widely and can include national caps or targets on emissions, standards for certain sectors of the economy, financial payments and transfers, technology development, specific programmes for adaptation and reporting and monitoring. The actions can be implicitly or explicitly designed to support sustainable development. The timing for actions varies considerably, from those taking effect immediately, to ones that may take effect only over the longer term; actions may be taken internally (within contracting Parties) or with others (both with non-Parties as well as non-State actors). Institutions and compliance provisions: Many agreements contain provisions for establishing and maintaining supporting institutions. These perform tasks as varied as serving as repositories for specific, agreement-related data, facilitating or adjudicating compliance, serving as clearing houses for market transactions or information flows, to managing financial arrangements. In addition, most agreements have provisions in case of non-compliance. These include binding and nonbinding consequences and may be facilitative or more coercive in nature. Other elements: Many (although not all) agreements contain additional elements, including, for example, “principles” and other preambular language. These can serve to provide context and guidance for operational elements, although they may be points of contention during negotiations. In addition, many agreements contain provisions for evaluating progress – with a timetable for reviewing the adequacy of efforts and evaluating whether they need to be augmented or modified.
to describe a full regime. The list of proposals is grouped around the following themes: national emission targets and emission trading, sectoral approaches, policies and measures, technology, development-oriented actions, adaptation, financing and proposals focusing on negotiation process and treaty structure. 13.3.3.1 Goals Most agreements (including those on climate change such as the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol), include specific goals to guide the selection of actions and timing as well as the selection of institutions. Goals can provide a common vision about both the near-term direction and the longer term certainty that is called for by business. In this discussion, goals are distinguished from targets: the former are long-term and systemic, while the latter relate to actions that are near-term and specific. Targets are described under the ‘Targets’ section (13.3.3.4.1) below. The choice of the long-term ambition level significantly influences the necessary short-term action and, therefore, the design of the international regime. For example, if the goal is
set at high stabilization levels (e.g. stabilizing concentrations at 750 ppmv CO2-eq, scenario category D of Chapter 3 of this report), a technology-focused approach that defers emissions reduction to the future would be sufficient for the time being. For low stabilization goals (e.g. 450 ppmv CO2-eq, category A1, or 550 ppmv CO2-eq, category B), short-term emission reductions would be necessary in addition to technological development programmes. International regimes can incorporate goals for the short and medium term and for the stabilization of GHG concentrations. One option is to set a goal for long-term GHG concentrations or a maximal temperature rise (such as the 2°C goal proposed by the EU). Such levels might be set based on an agreement of impacts to be avoided (see Den Elzen and Meinshausen, 2005) or on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis (see Nordhaus, 2001). A number of authors have commented on the advantages and disadvantages of setting long-term goals. Pershing and Tudela (2003) suggest that it may be difficult to gain a global agreement on any ‘dangerous’ level due to political and technical difficulties. Conversely, Corfee-Morlot and Höhne
31 While not an element, agreements often contain specific information as to the time for initiating actions and, often, a date by which actions are to be completed. In addition, many agreements contain provisions for evaluating progress – with a timetable for reviewing the adequacy of efforts and evaluating whether they need to be augmented or modified.
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