Friday Lunchtime Lecture: 16 November 2007

"The Road from Kyoto: Toward a More Realistic International Climate Change Policy" by Daniel H. Cole

Time	:	Lecture starts at 1pm (with a sandwich lunch, sponsored by Cambridge University Press, from 12:30pm
Venue	:	Finley Library, Lauterpacht Centre, 5 Cranmer Road, Cambridge

Daniel H. Cole is the R. Bruce Townsend Professor of Law at the Indiana University School of Law at Indianapolis. He has published six books, including Pollution and Property: Comparing Ownership Institutions for Environmental Protection (Cambridge University Press, 2002); and Instituting Environmental Protection: From Red to Green in Poland (Macmillan and St. Martin’s, 1998), and more than thirty articles, book chapters, and essays.

Professor Cole received his J.D., with Certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law, from the Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College; and he holds J.S.M. and J.S.D. degrees from the Stanford Law School. He is a Life Member of Clare Hall (College for Advanced Study), Cambridge, and he has been a Visiting Scholar in the Faculties of Law and Land Economy at the University of Cambridge. In 2001, Professor Cole was the John S. Lehmann Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis.

Abstract: In the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, developed countries promised to reduced their emissions of greenhouse gas by between five and eight percent to mitigate global climate change. This lecture reviews the Kyoto Protocol and finds it seriously flawed on a number of grounds.

First and most importantly, full compliance with the terms of the Kyoto Protocol is completely consistent with a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Any and all emissions reductions required from developing countries will be more than offset by increasing and unregulated emissions from developing countries.

Second, the Kyoto Protocol’s focus on emissions trading as the primary mechanism for emissions reductions ignores the fact that many countries (and not just less developed countries) lack the institutional and technological infrastructure to ensure monitoring and enforcement of emission quotas, without which trading programs are virtually certain to fail. In part to help resolve this problem, the Kyoto Protocol creates a huge administrative apparatus that itself will be very cumbersome and costly to operate. Consequently, emissions trading may not be, all things considered, the lowest cost means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The paper recommends a simpler and more targeted approach to greenhouse gas emissions reduction.

Finally, the Kyoto Protocol focuses exclusively on emissions reductions, while ignoring completely important issues of adaptation. There are provisions in the Framework Convention on Climate Change covering climate change adaptation, but with all the focus on the Kyoto’s mitigation mechanisms, adaptation efforts unfortunately have taken a back seat. Especially given Kyoto’s flaws, it is clear that some substantial level of adaptation will be necessary for all countries; and adaptation costs will be highest in the less developed countries of the world that can least afford them. The developed countries of the world, including the US and UK, need to do more to assist developing countries to create efficient market and governmental institutions that will improve adaptive capacity. As the history of foreign aid shows, this is more easily said than done. But the difficulties involved are no excuse for inaction.

The Centre's Friday Lunchtime Lectures are recognised by both the Law Society and the Bar Council as Continuing Professional Development (CPD) accredited courses. Information on other lectures held at the Lauterpacht Centre can be found here.