Seeking agreement on international climate policymaking - Ecology

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Jan, 2003 by Seth Dunn

While these studies indicate a growing engagement by industrial nation governments in dealing with climate change, the IEA observes that "there remains considerable scope for further improvements." It concludes that policies already enacted and proposed may not suffice for countries to meet their Kyoto targets, and that further action may be necessary.

Evaluating climate policy

In addition to identifying good practices, it is critical, in evaluating climate policy over the past decade, to compare governments' broader approaches with those recommended by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We need to ask: Did countries take a "portfolio" approach to climate policy, emphasizing a mix of instruments? Did they integrate policies with the non-climate objectives of other social and economic policies? Did they account for the ancillary benefits of policies that cut emissions? Did they coordinate actions internationally? Did they follow the principle that earlier action provides greater flexibility in moving toward long-term goals? Applying these yardsticks to the country studies shows that:

* Efforts to develop a "balanced, diversified portfolio" of policies are incomplete, with many governments relying mainly on of measure.

* Integration of climate change with the non-climate objectives of other policies has been highly limited.

* There has been little effort to assess the ancillary benefits of policies that reduce emissions.

* Few actions have been coordinated internationally.

* An emphasis on the importance of early action is not evident.

Why have countries largely failed to follow these IPCC recommendations? There are many reasons that partly explain this divergence between the theory and practice of climate policy. Climate policymaking is still immature, and the varying quality and quantity of information provided by governments--on the policies developed, their level of implementation, and the actual and projected impacts on emissions--make it difficult to assess what is being attempted, much less what is really being done, and what the impact has been. Therefore, continued progress in the reporting and review of national climate policy is needed. In particular, a more-rigorous accounting of the specific emissions impacts of individual policies is required to assess which policies are most effective and to enable the broader replication of the good practices that do exist.

To the extent that one can accurately compare the climate policies of different countries, it is evident that some are measuring up better than others. The degree of commitment to the climate change issue ranges widely among governments, for several reasons. In some countries, public awareness of the seriousness of the issue is strong, while in others, there is still just a vague understanding. In some countries, the issue has broad political support; in others, it divides sharply along party lines. These cultural factors help explain why, for example, the United Kingdom, German, and Japanese policies are clearly more integrated than those of Australia, Canada, and the U.S. Equally evident is that all could be doing much better with respect to each of the climate policy benchmarks.