Casual observers of the recent UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai (COP28) can be forgiven for attributing high stakes to the event. “We are on the brink of a climate disaster, and this conference must mark a turning point,” UN Chief Antonio Guterres warned during the proceedings. Then, when a final agreement was reached, Canadian Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault hailed its “breakthrough commitments on renewable energy, energy efficiency, and the transition away from fossil fuels.”
However, the truth is that neither the contents of the Dubai agreement, nor what was left out of it, would have much impact on climate change. We have seen this movie many times before, starting with the 1992 treaty that created the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Back then, all countries committed to preventing “dangerous” climate change, which would have required dramatic cuts in annual global greenhouse gas emissions. However, emissions have continued to rise, albeit at a lower rate than they might have otherwise. Voluntary commitments have proven mostly hollow.
To be clear, we are not suggesting that fevered warnings about climate risks and the need for action are misguided. As economists who have spent decades studying climate change, we recognize that some of the economics literature has too often been used by those opposing a meaningful response. As we note in a recent report for the Institute of Global Politics, economic models that purport to identify “optimal” climate policies often systematically underestimate the benefits of emissions reductions and overestimate their costs.
Moreover, economists have let their admiration for a single policy solution, carbon taxes, get the better of them. This has given rise to misleading claims that relying on carbon prices alone is the most cost-effective way to reduce emissions. However, the many market failures that stand in the way of a rapid, equitable transition to net zero emissions underscore the need for a broad portfolio of policies (which includes carbon prices).
In a world of urgent challenges, policymakers and the public have limited attention for climate change. Rather than focusing so much on international conferences that require unanimous support, entail no accountability and ultimately have little effect on emissions, we should be directing our energies toward negotiating agreements that could achieve transformational progress in narrow, but crucial, economic sectors.
We already know that this more targeted approach works. Consider the Montreal Protocol, which protects the stratospheric ozone layer, or the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL). Unlike the voluntary commitments made at each climate-change COP, these two treaties established binding obligations that could be enforced through international trade markets.
The Montreal Protocol bars participating countries from trading in chlorofluorocarbons (ozone-depleting chemicals) with non-participating countries; and under MARPOL, access to ports is restricted to ships that meet certain technical standards.
These two treaties have worked because they create positive feedback effects: the more countries that agree to participate, the higher the pressure on others to join. As a result, the ozone layer would return to its pre-1980 level in a few decades, and over 99 perent of oil is now shipped according to MARPOL specifications, virtually eliminating a major source of marine pollution.
The same approach has already worked for climate agreements. The Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol phases down hydrofluorocarbons, a powerful greenhouse gas. Like the examples above, the amendment incorporates a trade measure designed to create a positive feedback effect once a critical threshold of participation has been met. Owing to this structure, ratification is in every country’s interest. Even in the polarized US, it received strong bipartisan support in the US Senate last year.
We should now do the same for other major emissions sources. Aluminum production, for example, is responsible for about 2 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions each year. However, by replacing carbon anodes with inert anodes, the industry could dramatically reduce its emissions. An aluminum treaty might require that parties both switch to inert anodes and import aluminum only from other participating parties.
In contrast to unilateral threats of trade measures, this approach to international climate agreements is fundamentally cooperative and multilateral. It differs from unilaterally imposing domestic regulations on foreign production, as the EU is doing, or from imposing carbon-based tariffs on certain imports without any corresponding domestic regulations, as some in the US have proposed. These methods might only invite retaliation.
To succeed, international climate agreements must be compatible with countries’ economic strategies, not least those of lower-income countries like India, where most future emissions would occur. That is why the Montreal Protocol and Kigali Amendment include provisions whereby richer countries agree to help poorer countries pay the costs of compliance.
The international community took the wrong lesson from the Kyoto Protocol. It should be obvious by now that relying on voluntary commitments and aspirational targets does not work. The problem with Kyoto was that it did not get the incentives right.
By focusing climate agreements on individual sectors, linking obligations to trade access, and addressing the “common but differentiated” roles of rich and poor countries in international negotiations, the world would have a better chance to achieve the goals outlined in the Dubai agreement: a rapid and equitable transition to net zero emissions.
Then, future climate-change COPs could focus on other consequential issues, rather than on crafting the right mix of hollow words that everyone could agree on.
Scott Barrett is the Lenfest-Earth Institute Professor of Natural Resource Economics at Columbia University’s Climate School.
Noah Kaufman is a senior researcher at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, a former senior economist for the Council of Economic Advisers and a former deputy associate director of energy and climate change at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Joseph E. Stiglitz, a former chief economist of the World Bank and former chair of the US President’s Council of Economic Advisers, is a university professor at Columbia University and a Nobel laureate in economics.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
A series of strong earthquakes in Hualien County not only caused severe damage in Taiwan, but also revealed that China’s power has permeated everywhere. A Taiwanese woman posted on the Internet that she found clips of the earthquake — which were recorded by the security camera in her home — on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu. It is spine-chilling that the problem might be because the security camera was manufactured in China. China has widely collected information, infringed upon public privacy and raised information security threats through various social media platforms, as well as telecommunication and security equipment. Several former TikTok employees revealed
The bird flu outbreak at US dairy farms keeps finding alarming new ways to surprise scientists. Last week, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirmed that H5N1 is spreading not just from birds to herds, but among cows. Meanwhile, media reports say that an unknown number of cows are asymptomatic. Although the risk to humans is still low, it is clear that far more work needs to be done to get a handle on the reach of the virus and how it is being transmitted. That would require the USDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to get
For the incoming Administration of President-elect William Lai (賴清德), successfully deterring a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attack or invasion of democratic Taiwan over his four-year term would be a clear victory. But it could also be a curse, because during those four years the CCP’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will grow far stronger. As such, increased vigilance in Washington and Taipei will be needed to ensure that already multiplying CCP threat trends don’t overwhelm Taiwan, the United States, and their democratic allies. One CCP attempt to overwhelm was announced on April 19, 2024, namely that the PLA had erred in combining major missions
On April 11, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida delivered a speech at a joint meeting of the US Congress in Washington, in which he said that “China’s current external stance and military actions present an unprecedented and the greatest strategic challenge … to the peace and stability of the international community.” Kishida emphasized Japan’s role as “the US’ closest ally.” “The international order that the US worked for generations to build is facing new challenges,” Kishida said. “I understand it is a heavy burden to carry such hopes on your shoulders,” he said. “Japan is already standing shoulder to shoulder