Orchestra of Treaties: A Future Climate Regime Scenario with Multiple Treaties among Like-minded Countries

Abstract

Abstract. The Orchestra of Treaties scenario emerges if countries share the following principles for re-building the climate regime: (1) recognize the sovereignty concerns attending energy policies; (2) build upon national interests in technology and development; (3) avoid conflicts and enhance cooperation by appropriately framing core issues; and (4) address not only short-term emission cuts but also long-term technological change.In this scenario, countries will share these principles by drawing on the hard lessons of past UNFCCC negotiations. The framing of the climate change problem as the allocation of emission quota created an adversarial style of negotiation that resulted in distrust among countries. Moreover, the negotiations have been characterized by unpredictable outcomes. Since energy policies were deemed as sovereignty concerns, countries did not want to put such issues on the agenda to avoid a potentially intrusive outcome. This negotiation style brought about shortcomings of the Kyoto Protocol and may lead to a stalemate in future negotiations. The scenario captures the dynamics that emerge when multiple efforts are pursued by flexible coordination of actors motivated through diverse incentives. The emerging regime, the Orchestra of Treaties, will consist of four building blocks, of which three grow outside of UNFCCC.(1) Group of Emission Markets (GEM) begins with separate domestic markets without internationally imposed emission targets. The markets are then gradually coordinated through price signals. The advantage of this pathway is that it fosters the establishment of emission markets without conflicting with sovereignty concerns for energy policy, thereby enabling key large emitters to establish emission markets. (2) Zero Emission Technology Treaty (ZETT) that addresses long-term technological change.This will set zero CO 2 emission from the energy sector as the long-term goal, thereby creating strong signals to stakeholders. It will begin as a non-binding pledge and review system so that it does not conflict with sovereignty concerns. (3) Climate-wise Development Treaty (CDT) that addresses the concerns of developing countries, which are development, adaptation, technological transfer and mitigation. In this treaty, developed countries agree to revise their assistance policies to make development more sustainable and climate-wise. (4) UNFCCC will serve as an information exchange arena, target funding mechanism and a political focal point.

Environmental effectiveness and economic consequences of fragmented versus universal regimes: what can we learn from model studies?

“…It should be noted that our criterion of only including studies with quantitative assessment of emission reductions and regional costs meant that some regimes were not included, e.g. the fragmented regime Orchestra of Treaties (Sugiyama and Sinton 2005).…”

Technology investment, bargaining, and international environmental agreements

“…The question of treaty design has drawn a lot of attention in recent years, but the relationship between technology investment and bargaining has not figured prominently in this debate (Aldy and Stavins 2007;de Coninck et al 2008;Sugiyama and Sinton 2005). I have found that the use of an equitable bargaining protocol, perhaps through a public commitment to a burden sharing principle, can provide weak countries with incentives to invest in clean technology.…”

Trade and investment liberalization as determinants of multilateral environmental agreement membership

“…Others focus on a small subset of countries or regions (see Beron et al 2003;Murdoch et al 2003;Davies and Naughton 2006;Rose and Spiegel 2009;Frankel and Rose 2002;Altamirano-Cabrera and Finus 2006;Tobey 1990;van den Bergh 1997, 2000;Sugiyama and Sinton 2005;Swanson and Mason 2002).…”