Carmen Bunzl - Universidad Pontificia Comillas

Chapter 2. Options for future climate change architectures 99
Countries or country groups have different potential expectations of a future
climate regime, for some criterion they strongly oppose. Four major conflicts
can be extracted from the assessment presented.
Figure 2 - 1. Countries’ different expectations of a future climate change regime
1) Economic efficiency vs. environmental effectiveness
There is conflict within the fundamental approach to address climate change.
Some countries, lead by the USA, approach it as an economic problem, and
view as the highest priority economic efficiency – low cost and certainty about
emission reduction costs. Emphasis is given to short-term economic
considerations rather than to long-term environmental objectives. Emission
reductions are not treated with urgency, they may prefer approaches that
prepare them to act later, e.g. technology development.
Some other country groups, such as the EU, enhance the environmental
aspect of the problem, keeping global emissions low has the highest priority.
Urgency to act is stressed by these countries. They want certainty on low global
emission levels, they may not accept an agreement that would minimize the
costs but it is unclear whether the long-term objective of the Convention can be
met. They would prefer to work towards defining a joint long-term goal.
Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería ICAI Carmen Bunzl Boulet Junio 2008