Beyond Kyoto: Identifying the Long-term Options

Widespread political support indicates that the process towards the Kyoto Protocol is still alive, notwithstanding the uncertainty about its coming into force (notably because Russia still hesitates to ratify). However, whatever Russia’s strategy, the US decision not to ratify Kyoto has weakened the Kyoto Protocol and undermined its environmental effectiveness. At the same time, general consensus has emerged that the Kyoto Protocol represents only a first step towards the broader aim of minimising the danger of climate change. Climate change can only be effectively defeated if a large number of countries, including the major CO2-emitters, coordinate their efforts to reduce GHG emissions. In order to improve the future prospects of climate policy, numerous strategies and proposals have recently been discussed. This paper contributes to this research field by designing and analysing a number of politically relevant and realistic regimes for future emission abatement commitments, as opposed to previous research studies which were mainly based on ad-hoc assumptions, as e.g. the “Kyoto forever” hypothesis. The implications for the main economic variables of six different future commitments scenarios will be assessed and analysed. In particular, participation incentives will be discussed and some suggestions for the design of future negotiation targets will be proposed.