What will break the climate policy log jam? And what do we do in the meantime?
Earlier this month the European Environment Agency (EEA) released a report (http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/progress-towards-kyoto/) detailing Europe’s progress towards emission targets set under the Kyoto Protocol. Europe’s relative success in limiting its emissions can be explained by a number of factors, which could monopolize this entire post (and more), but for the purposes of this blog I think it’s timely to give a nod to Europe’s laudable and substantive policy response to climate change. At the same time, the news coming out of the EEA provides a good opportunity to critically reassess the state of global climate policy, which is due for a reality check. Some have referred to climate change as the mother of all collective action problems, and indeed it is an inherently global problem that demands a global (or near global) response. Europe is not able to, nor can it afford to, do it alone. Meanwhile, it doesn’t require sophisticated policy analysis to conclude that other major emitters (e.g., the United States, China, India, and Brazil) do not view the issue of climate change with the same political imperative that they do in Europe, at least not yet. Read More»
