Endogenous Technological Change in Strategies for Mitigating Climate Change

Suggestions on international cooperation in climate policy beyond 2012 include substi-tuting or complementing international environmental agreements (IEA) with technologyoriented agreements (TOA). We look at the impact of TOA on environmental cooperationin the framework of coalition stability. Using a numerical model, we analyze the differ-ences of several TOA and how they interact. We find that participation in and environmen-tal effectiveness of the IEA are raised less effectively when the TOA focuses on mitigationtechnology rather than augmenting productivity, which is due to the former having an effecton all actors via emissions, whereas effects of the latter are exclusive to research partners.For the same reason, we find that restricting the effects of R&D; cooperation is credibleonly in case of productivity. Technology standards may fail to foster participation whenthey are restricting members and non-members alike, and may suffer from inefficiencies.However, when implemented as a complementary instrument, these disadvantages did notapply. Separately negotiated technology standards may hence facilitate participation in anIEA without adding to its complexity.