- English
The Kyoto Protocol, in its present form, is quantitatively and structurally totally inadequate to combat dangerous climate change. That is - to the authors of this paper - the inevitable conclusion to be drawn from three careful scientific studies on behalf of the Ministry of Environment of the German federal state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, two published in Beyond Kyoto - A New Global Climate Certificate System. Continuing Kyoto Commitments or a New Global Climate "Cap-and-Trade Scheme" for a Sustainable Climate Policy? (Wicke 2005) and one in Cost Impacts of a "Beyond Kyoto"-Global Cap and Trade Scheme (Wicke 2006) However, as the cited publications demonstrate, by a "structural evolution" of the climate regime, there can and should be an efficient and internationally acceptable beyond-Kyoto system. It is only necessary to combine some brilliant ideas that have already been proposed: the flexible Kyoto cap-and-trade mechanisms (emission trading between states, joint implementation, and the clean development mechanism) "invented" by US scientists and implemented in the Kyoto Protocol should be enlarged to a global cap-and-trade system, while the idea of equal per capita emission rights from India and Pakistan - which has been unfairly written off as not a serious proposal - can be the basic key to fair distribution of emission rights.1 Additionally, there must be economic corrections and mechanisms within such a free-market-oriented cap-and-trade scheme to make it economically acceptable for all countries to combat successfully dangerous climate change. This system would give incentives for climate-efficient behavior and structures worldwide and provide adequate means and incentives for sustainable, climatefriendly development and for the elimination of poverty - especially in developing countries. This paper attempts to prove both the inadequacy of the current Kyoto system and the feasibility and necessity of such a global cap-and-trade scheme - being nearly completely in line with a recent urgent call for a global cap-and-trade scheme by the World Economic Forum (World Economic Forum 2005).
Remarks:
http://pub.iges.or.jp/modules/envirolib/view.php?docid=446
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- English
