David Victor relies on the available science to conclude that the main contribution of humanity to climate change is the carbon dioxide (CO2) that is a byproduct of burning fossil fuels that power our modern economies.
Mr. Victor identifies three distinct challenges that global warming represents for policy making and implementation:
1) Cutting emissions: Most diplomacy has focused on targets and timetables to reduce emissions of CO2 within a universal forum without actually doing much to protect the climate. These global goals reflect what the author calls the "scientist's myth." This myth is based on the belief that once a scientific consensus is achieved, regulation will come in its aftermath. This top-down approach ignores how power, interests, and capabilities interact with each other at the state level. Each country has to figure out which emissions it will be able and willing to cut without undermining its competitiveness in a globalized economy.
2) Technological innovation: Radically new technologies will be needed to use energy more efficiently. Mr. Victor debunks both the "engineer's" and "environmentalist's" myths on this subject. The "engineer's myth" reflects the conviction that once inventors have created new technologies, these inventions can quickly enter into service. The "environmentalist's myth" ignores the reality that the real policy challenges of global warming are related to the design and management of a slow, costly, and difficult transformation in how society obtains and uses energy. History shows that world's energy systems cannot change much faster than at a 50-70 year pace.
3) Bracing for change: The earth will get warmer and climate will change further before emissions of CO2 can be stabilized and eventually reduced in the coming decades. To cope with change, (some) states will have to pursue two separate strategies: Adaptation, which is mainly a reflection of each country's internal makeup, and geoengineering, which is the direct intervention in nature to offset (crudely) the effects of global warming.
To overcome the lack of significant progress in tackling climate change, Mr. Victor makes six arguments:
1) Gridlock on global warming exists, to a large extent, because governments have relied too much on the history of international environmental accords. Think for example about the successful Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer of 1987. These accords are a poor fit for regulating emissions of CO2 that require complicated coordination of policies that are costly and therefore a possible threat to one country's global competitiveness.
2) Twelve countries, including the European Union treated as one, generate about 77% of emissions. Drawing heavily from the history of organizations such as the European Union and the World Trade Organization, Mr. Victor proposes the creation of a "club" where these countries will make contingent commitments, "bids," towards each other. This bottom-up approach will require that each of these twelve countries makes a flexible, credible bid that has two components: A. declarations of what the country will do and B. a promise of additional efforts contingent of what other countries might do. This club approach has distinctive advantages such as making it easier to come up with complicated deals and better channeling benefits such as preferential access to clean energy markets and carbon credits to other club members. These benefits will, in turn, give non-members a strong incentive to join the club and abide by its rules. The United Nations (UN) approach to climate change lacks credibility in achieving results because it is the wrong forum to get these results. The UN will enhance its reputation on this subject by taking a back seat to the club that Mr. Victor calls for.
3) The "enthusiastic" industrialized countries such as Germany and Japan, which are willing to spend their own resources to control emissions, have the strongest incentive to lead this effort through contingent bids. Contingency will be key to alleviating concerns with global competitiveness of any participating country. The outcome of these negotiations will result in the signature of what the author calls "climate accession deals (CADs)."
4) The "reluctant" countries such as China and India, which will account for most of the growth in future emissions, have to be engaged through the same kinds of deals. The current approach of paying them the entire additional cost of controlling emissions has undermined their incentive to do more on this subject. Think for example about the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Credibly sun-setting these payments will help address this lack of incentive to act.
5) The club approach will require the creation of new institutions based on the philosophy of "trust but verify" that ensures accountability, enforcement, and transparency.
6) Implementing this approach will require time to negotiate the CADs and subsequently to transform the world's energy systems. In the meantime, adaptation and geoengineering will be needed to cope with the effects of a changing climate.
Mr. Victor estimates that the climate talks are evolving in the direction that he pleads for not by design but rather by default. This evolution by default does not bode well because it lacks the club approach that is the best bet currently available to unlock climate change gridlock. The author deplores that no major country, including the U.S., is taking the lead in reforming the failed process mentioned above.
In summary, Mr. Victor calls for a thorough reexamination of the universal approach to climate change that is based mostly on wishful thinking and empty promises that have little chance to become reality anytime soon.
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