Beyond Copenhagen: Reconciling International Fairness, Economic Development, and Climate Protection

The goal of the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements is to help identify key design elements of a scientifically sound, economically rational, and politically pragmatic post-2012 international policy architecture for global climate change. It draws upon leading thinkers from academia, private industry, government, and non-governmental organizations from around the world to construct a small set of promising policy frameworks and then disseminate and discuss the design elements and frameworks with decision-makers. The Project is directed Acknowledgements Major funding for the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements has been provided by a grant from the Climate Change Initiative of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Additional support has been provided by Christopher P. The views expressed in the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements Discussion Paper Series are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the John F. Kennedy School of Government or of Harvard University. Discussion Papers have not undergone formal review and approval. Such papers are included in this series to elicit feedback and to encourage debate on important public policy challenges. Copyright belongs to the author(s). Papers may be downloaded for personal use only.ABSTRACT Time to respond to the severe threat posed by global climate change is running short. Though the most recent international climate negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) achieved some consensus in the form of the Copenhagen Accord, they failed to produce an adequate and legally binding action plan for achieving long-term reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions. Looking beyond Copenhagen, this paper proposes a new architecture for international climate policy going forward. It highlights a top-down, burden-sharing rule that is designed to produce a fair distribution of burdens across countries while also (a) giving priority to economic development and concerns about wealth inequality and (b) achieving emission reductions consistent with holding the expected increase in global average temperature to 2 degrees Celsius. In addition, this paper discusses several key design elements that will be important, especially from the perspective of developing countries, to the success of future international climate negotiations. These design elements include agreements on burden sharing, choice of policy instruments, financial mechanisms and technology transfer, penalties for noncompliance, and linkages between trade and climate change.