Carmen Bunzl - Universidad Pontificia Comillas

Chapter 2. Options for future climate change architectures 79
Institutional
feasibility
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The Multistage approach rates good in almost all criteria. It seems likely that
any future regime will be staged in some form, it is a flexible system with many
possibilities on types of stages and thresholds for moving stages. The critical
element of the approach is that additional countries participate early enough so
that stringent environmental goals are reached; there should be incentives for
such participation, not only thresholds for participation. An important element
is stage 2, pledge for sustainable development, which could be seen as a
positive outcome for developing countries. The approach is, however, weak on
the technical requirements as it can be a complicated system requiring many
decisions.
The Contraction and Convergence approach rates very well on the
environmental and technical criteria due to its simplicity. But this simplicity is
also its major disadvantage: it doesn’t take into account structural differences of
countries and may not be accepted by most of the countries. Advanced
developing countries, for example, would be treated the same way as low
emission industrialized countries. The concept of eventually converging per
capita emissions in the long term could be part of a futures regime; but classic
Contraction and Convergence is too simple, and a decision that all countries
participate at once could be seen as unrealistic.
The Global Tryptich approach rated very well on the environmental criteria
as it caps global emissions and on the economic criteria as it explicitly takes into
account the national circumstances. It is a sophisticated approach to sharing
emission allowances within any group of countries. Its major disadvantage is its
relative complexity and the high data requirements, especially the assumed
future production growth rates are critical. The Tryptich approach, although it
Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería ICAI Carmen Bunzl Boulet Junio 2008