Global Warming: Looking Beyond Kyoto »

Ernesto Zedillo is director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and professor in the field of international economics and politics at Yale University. He is also an adjunct professor of forestry and environmental studies. Zedillo was president of Mexico from 1994 until 2000.

Climate change poses a multidimensional international challenge, one that eludes straightforward solutions. In Global Warming: Looking beyond Kyoto, some of the best-known and respected authorities in climate policy-including members of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)-provide a comprehensive agenda for global collective action. Representing both industrialized and developing nations, the contributors present a thought-provoking examination of the economic, social, and political context of climate policy within their countries.

There is a growing international consensus that the earth's climate is being changed by anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Evidence presented by the IPCC and others points to the potential for increasingly dangerous weather, new disease outbreaks, regional water shortages, the loss of habitat and species, and other disturbing developments that could have profound social and economic impacts around the globe. Opinion on what should be done to address climate change, however, remains sharply divided within and among countries.

Tension remains between wealthy nations and developing countries regarding the roles and responsibilities of each. Not only are governments and societies wrestling with the complications involved in the provision of a global public good, but they are also dealing with unprecedented uncertainties about the costs and benefits of solutions with a long-term course of delivery. These economics lie at the crux of this issue today, as they have since the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997.

Though monumental in its efforts, the Kyoto Protocol has left much to be agreed upon and achieved,with the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide-the United States-rejecting it. With Kyoto's emissions targets set to expire in 2012, the authors of this volume call for a multilateral approach that goes beyond the mitigation-focused Kyoto policies, balancing them with strategies for adaptation.

Informed, insightful, and evenhanded, this book gives a new impetus to the increasingly important global climate policy debate.

Contributors: Howard Dalton (University of Warwick), Alexander Golub (Environmental Defense), Thomas Heller (Stanford University), Gernot Klepper (Kiel Institute for World Economics), Richard S. Lindzen (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Shen Longhai (China Energy Conservation Association), Robert Mendelsohn (Yale University), William D. Nordhaus (Yale University), R. K. Pachauri (Energy Resources Institute and the IPCC), Jyoti Parikh (Integrated Research and Action for Development, New Delhi), Sonja Peterson (Kiel Institute for World Economics), Stefan Rahmstorf (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research), Stephen H. Schneider (Stanford University), Robert N. Stavins (Harvard University), and John Stone (Carleton University, Ottawa)

Acknowledgments     ix
Introduction   Ernesto Zedillo     1
Climate Change Detection and Scenarios: Reexamining the Evidence     11
The IPCC: Establishing the Evidence   R. K. Pachauri     13
Is the Global Warming Alarm Founded on Fact?   Richard S. Lindzen     21
Anthropogenic Climate Change: Revisiting the Facts   Stefan Rahmstorf     34
Measuring Our Vulnerabilities to Climate Change     55
"Dangerous" Climate Change: Key Vulnerabilities   Stephen H. Schneider     57
The Policy Implications of Climate Change Impacts   Robert Mendelsohn     82
The Kyoto Protocol: Consequences and Opportunities for Transformation     89
Economic Analyses of the Kyoto Protocol: Is There Life after Kyoto?   William D. Nordhaus     91
The European Emissions Trading Regime and the Future of Kyoto   Gernot Klepper   Sonja Peterson     101
Alternative Climate Policy Options     113
Climate Change: Designing an Effective Response   Thomas Heller     115
An International Policy Architecture for the Post-Kyoto Era   Robert N. Stavins     145
Climate Policy in the Industrialized Countries     155
Controversies of Russian Climate Policy and Opportunities for Greenhouse Gas Reduction   Alexander Golub     157
Climate Policy in the United Kingdom   Howard Dalton     175
Canada's Approach to Tackling Climate Change   John M. R. Stone     193
Linking Climate Change Control and Development Policies     203
India and Climate Change: Mitigation, Adaptation, and a Way Forward   Jyoti Parikh     205
Correct Choices for China: Energy Conservation, a Cyclic Economy, and a Conservation-Minded Society   Shen Longhai     215
Contributors     225
Index     231