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Carmen Bunzl - Universidad Pontificia Comillas

Carmen Bunzl - Universidad Pontificia Comillas

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Chapter 2. Options for future climate change architectures 104<br />

American policy on climate change is less consistent and is greatly<br />

influenced by the flavour of the ruling administration. While the Bush<br />

administration insists that binding emission limits for the USA are not possible,<br />

all potential successor candidates - new elections in the USA are only<br />

September 2008 - voiced their preference for national programmes in the USA<br />

that cap emissions.<br />

There remains an interesting option in engaging the US through the<br />

involvement of individual states (such as the Regional Clean Air Act Incentives<br />

Market operating in Southern California and the US Clean Air Act). Individual<br />

states have already been pressing the Bush administration to regulate emissions<br />

of greenhouse gases. A bottom-up approach could serve as the catalyst to<br />

ensure federal acceptance of a more active role in greenhouse mitigation efforts.<br />

3.2.3 Regional comparison<br />

This section compares and clarifies differences revealed in proposals from<br />

different regions on future international climate change agreement. It is based<br />

on the study carried out by Kameyema (2004).<br />

Tendencies evident in proposals from each region are reviewed from three<br />

perspectives: (1) component of commitment, (2) timeframe and coverage, and<br />

(3) architecture.<br />

In Europe, most studies were on rules for emission allocation and criteria to<br />

evaluate them. Many of the proposals were basically supportive of the current<br />

international emissions trading scheme (element 1); suggestions for alternative<br />

approaches were the minority. A long-term goal (element 2) – such as the<br />

ultimate objective in Article 2 of the UNFCCC - was considered as important; it<br />

was regarded as justification for setting a short-term commitment. Proposals on<br />

burden-sharing rules generally assumed similar architectures to the Kyoto<br />

Protocol (element 3), where national emission targets are set, together with<br />

flexible mechanisms to reach them.<br />

Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería ICAI <strong>Carmen</strong> <strong>Bunzl</strong> Boulet Junio 2008

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