The main challenges after Kyoto

Abstract

The two main challenges in the post-2012 period are to bring the United States back into the negotiation and to find ways to associate the developing countries in the common reduction effort. The United States vision is presently very focused on technological issues. This often seems to conflict with the European point of view which focuses on emission trading schemes. Thus a first challenge is to reconcile those two visions and develop a common understanding of how to accelerate research on climate change technologies. Regarding the developing countries issue, the main challenge is to accelerate the transfer of clean technologies into those countries, in order to alter their emissions trajectories in the long run. The Clean Development Mechanism will not be enough ; new instruments and new modalities of association with those countries will have to be developed within the post-2012 framework. JEL classification : Q53, Q54, Q58