Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law

Abstract

The atmosphere is a global commons. Unabated use of the commons as a dumping ground for greenhouse gases ("GHGs") could eventually produce significant, perhaps unacceptable environmental changes. Yet actions to limit emissions significantly are likely to entail large costs. In the absence of a common regime for limiting use of the atmospheric commons, no nation will have an adequate incentive to limit its own use because it will have no assurance that others will do likewise. Its solitary control efforts would do relatively little to avert warming, and its citizens and industries would incur a potentially serious economic disadvantage. Two years ago, the Bush administration proposed a comprehensive approach to global climate research and policy that embraced all GHGs, their sources and sinks. The United States argued that a comprehensive approach was far superior, on both economic and environmental grounds, to a piecemeal approach directed at only a part of the problem, such as C02 emissions. Initial reactions to this position ranged from skepticism to hostility. Doubts were expressed about the practicality of a comprehensive approach. In addition, some saw the proposal as an excuse for inaction and delay. Those impatient for an early agreement on GHG limitations pressed for a convention controlling C02 fossil fuel emissions. Today, the environmental and economic logic of the comprehensive approach is finding increasing favor among nations currently negotiating a global climate framework agreement and within the international environmental policy community. Nonetheless, doubts about its practicality remain. This essay advocates the comprehensive approach. It first explains what the approach is and how it would be implemented. It then explains the environmental and economic benefits of such an approach and the ways in which it will enhance the likelihood of international agreement on measures to limit GHGs by establishing a level playing field among nations and reducing the cost of achieving limitations. Next, the essay considers the practical scientific and institutional problems in implementing a comprehensive approach. Finally, it discusses how a comprehensive approach could be combined with international trading of net GHG emission reduction credits. Such a trading system would further reduce the costs of achieving reductions in net GHG emissions and stimulate the development of a decentralized, effective means of transferring capital and technology from industrialized countries ("ICs") to developing countries ("DCs").

First Page

83

Volume

9

Publication Date

1992

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