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

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 coordinationof actorsmotivated throughdiverse incentives. The emerging regime, theOrchestra 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 CO2 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. International Environmental Agreements (2005) 5:65–88 Springer 2005 DOI 10.1007/s10784-004-3702-6