Search

The EU emissions trading system (ETS) has now completed its three year pilot phase (i.e. 2005-7). Links have already been established between the EU ETS and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol. Furthermore, global emissions trading under the Protocol is set to commence in 2008. Based on an emerging body of literature on institutional interaction, this paper will discuss various dimensions of the developing positive and negative interaction between the company focused EU ETS and the country focused global carbon trading and other relevant global institutions. More specifically, the following three cases of interaction will be analysed: First, the interaction between the Kyoto Protocol (as source) and the ETS as target. The first and seminal phase of this interaction started quite immediately after the adoption of the Protocol in late 1997. A second phase of interaction started in 2004 when the EU states started to develop national allocation plans (NAPs) where bringing in credits/allowances developed under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and (subsequently) Joint Implementation (JI) became one compliance strategy. Second, the opposite relationship will be more closely examined. i.e. with the ETS as the source and the Kyoto Protocol institutions as targets. This can also be analysed in several phases, with the first phase starting after the adoption of the 2003 ET Directive and with the developing ETS possibly leading to a more rapid and extensive CDM development than would otherwise have been the case. A separate case of interaction deals with the possible role the ETS plays and could play for an emerging global carbon market. Third, attention will be given to a different type of interaction involving the ETS, namely interaction between the ETS and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent scholarly work on the interplay between international regimes has proceeded from a rationalist research agenda and has been largely preoccupied with developing taxonomies or conceptual maps of different types of regime interplay and exploring ways of 'optimising synergies' between overlapping regimes. This paper develops an alternative, critical constructivist framework for understanding regime interplay that directs attention not only to direct interplay between regime rules and principles but also the interplay between the discourses that surround, shape and constrain how actors interpret and seek to reconcile actual conflict, or prevent potential conflict, between regimes. The added-value of this approach is illustrated through an examination of the relationship between the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Kyoto Protocol. It is shown that, despite the considerable potential for conflict between the regimes, rule-collision has been avoided through a process of 'self-censorship' on the part of the negotiators of the climate regime in determining the kinds of policy instruments that might be used to realize the regime's objectives. This 'self-censorship' is the result of the dominance (if not triumph) of a market-friendly transnational discourse of trade-environment integration that focuses on efficiency gains from technological innovation that had become internationally established before the completion of the Uruguay Round and the establishment of the WTO. However, the WTO has since played a significant role in articulating and reinforcing this discourse. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question this paper addresses is whether and, if so, to what extent can existing IR theories of high politics decision making be applied to low politics issue areas, specifically international environmental policy. The paper considers three individual level theories: Prospect Theory, Political and Policy Risk Theory and Poliheuristic Theory. Each is applied to two case studies, The Montreal Protocol and The Kyoto Protocol, to test its ability to explain the decision-making processes of United States presidents. The climate change case study is most illustrative, either for or against the applicability of a theory, as the risks presidents faced were greater. The paper concludes that none of the applications lend full support to any of the theories. At the same time, none of them completely invalidate the theories either. Of the three, Political and Policy Risk Theory shows the most promise, while the analysis of Prospect Theory reveals some weaknesses in its applicability and the results of the application of Poliheuristic Theory fall somewhere in between. The findings suggest that foreign policy analysis theories may be best able to explain international environmental policy choices if they can capture the complexity of the issue, better define risk and allow for more human agency in terms of personal preferences and belief systems. In general, the applications to environmental policy suggest that the three theories could be adjusted or amended to become better generalizable to different policy areas. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why did the United States sign the Kyoto Protocol? The Clinton administration?s decision to sign Kyoto in 1998 is interesting because it seems a deviant case for leading theoretical orientations and middle-range theories in International Relations. This paper is a case study of the Clinton administration's decision to sign the Kyoto Protocol. The single-case design does not permit a strict test of existing theory. However, it does serve two goals. Through the use of within-case methods of analysis, the paper (1) provides a theoretically-informed explanation of a historically-interesting event, and (2) heuristically proposes directions for future theory-development by examining the congruence between the case and several leading theories in the study of international relations and foreign policy. While U.S. nonratification of the Protocol is overdetermined by theory, the decision to sign the Protocol presents a puzzle for existing theory. The paper argues that the U.S. signature was nevertheless significant for international relations, and concludes by proposing a novel combination of two-level and signaling approaches to explain that decision. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What may make climate change agreements attractive to states? Russia's decision to ratify the Kyoto Protocol is one that could potentially constrain its economic development. I argue that the international relations literature on climate change agreements can be best advanced with the inclusion of models from comparative politics. This argument is carried out through an analysis of Russia's ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. I employ a combined two-level game theoretical framework to rediscover Kyoto ratification and explain why it became both rationally sound and politically possible in Russia. At the domestic level, it appears that Putin made ratification politically possible through the elimination of what are called veto-players with the potential to block Kyoto. At the international level, ratification will be shown to be logically sound through a discussion of nested games. Russia, at the time of ratification, was engaged in multiple games at both domestic and international levels. Although Russia appeared to choose suboptimally, its decision becomes optimal when one analyzes the whole network of games with which it was engaged. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the theory of two-level games, negotiators will tailor the agreement at level I so as to be ratifiable at level II in all major countries. This did not happen in the Kyoto negotiations as far as the United States is concerned. We interviewed 27 German, Norwegian, and U.S. participants in and observers to the climate change negotiations regarding their views on three explanations of why the United States did not become a party to the Kyoto Protocol. Explanation 1 argues that delegations in Kyoto mistakenly thought the U.S. Senate was bluffing when adopting the Byrd-Hagel resolution. Explanation 2 contends that the Europeans preferred a more ambitious agreement without the United States to a less ambitious agreement with the United States included. Finally, explanation 3 suggests that in Kyoto the Clinton-Gore administration had already given up on achieving ratification by the Senate, and essentially pushed for an agreement that would provide them with a climate-friendly face. All three explanations received at least some support from people we interviewed. However, explanations 1 and 3 received more support than explanation 2. Moreover, while explanation 1 received most support in Germany and Norway, explanation 3 received most support in the United States. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do requirements for legitimate global governance vary across intergovernmental and non-state governance institutions and different issue areas? I introduce a framework to address this question that draws attention to the social forces and power dynamics at play in determining what standards of legitimacy apply. Rather than beginning with a focus on democratic legitimacy, which pre-judges what legitimacy requires, the framework takes a sociological approach. It posits that what constitutes legitimacy results from an interaction of communities of actors affected by the regulatory institutions in question (who must accept the authority of the institution as appropriate) with broader legitimating norms and discourses (i.e., social structure) that prevail in the relevant issue area. Relevant norms may include those that legitimate sovereign authority, as well as marketplace norms, norms in relevant issue areas, and democratic norms. To illustrate its plausibility to reveal and explain varying legitimacy requirements, the framework is applied to a comparison of intergovernmental and non-state institutions in the social and environmental issue area: the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and members of the International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling (ISEAL) Alliance, an umbrella organization created to develop agreement on "best practices" for its members. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As many critics believe, the Kyoto Protocol did not solve (but sustain) the problems of global warming through stretched out timetables, flexible emissions targets, and voluntary compliance. While not disputing such indecisive ends at Kyoto, the means which caused these effects have not been analyzed consistently-by any one theory, model, or paradigm-given all the multiple actors and factors involved. With so much uncertainty, it might be consistent (if not convenient) to look at Kyoto in terms of the garbage can model which focuses on "problematic preferences" (incompatible agendas), "unclear technology" (insufficient access), and "fluid participation" (interference among actors). For even though the garbage can model would look at the "organized anarchy" of Kyoto, the oddity here reveals state-centric preferences that deliberately dirty the "windows," and divert "multiple streams" (problems, politics, and policies) thereby obstructing real, environmental, reform. In the final analysis, preliminary accounts about the study and statecraft of global environmental politics amount to "blame on it Rio" (or the UNFCCC)-which set the unrealistic, irreconcilable, agenda-that just keeps recycling the paradox of the Kyoto Protocol through the garbage can model. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On November 5, 2004, the Russian Federation ratified the Kyoto Protocol, in effect saving the treaty following the United States’ decision not to ratify it. Why did the Russian government – with little popular pressure and little enthusiasm for environmental protection – decide to ratify Kyoto, and what measures will it take to implement the treaty? Proponents of ratification were numerous, consisting mainly of scientists, environmentalists, and business interests, but they were countered by a small number of powerful anti-Kyoto voices in the scientific and political communities who appeared to dominate the debate. In the end these battling interests had little influence on the decision due to the centralized institutional environment in Russia which allows the President to make foreign policy decisions largely single-handedly. President Putin ratified the treaty because Russia would likely experience economic gains rather than losses from Kyoto provisions, gain leverage in other international negotiations, and contribute to an image of itself as a good member of the club of advanced industrialized states. The president delayed ratification in order to clarify evidence about gains versus losses and secure concessions from other Kyoto ratifiers in other international negotiations. Implementation of the treaty is proceeding slowly, in part due to uncertainty during the ratification process, and existing efforts indicate that Russia's implementation strategy will likely be directed more at maximizing profits through treaty mechanisms to modernize industrial sectors than at maximizing emissions reductions. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]