Carmen Bunzl - Universidad Pontificia Comillas

Chapter 1. Introduction 21
4.2.1.3 Joint Implementation
This programme allows industrialized countries to meet part of their
required cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions by paying for projects that reduce
emissions in other industrialized countries.
The sponsoring governments will receive credits that may be applied to their
emissions targets; the recipient nations will gain foreign investment and
advanced technology, but not credit toward meeting their own emissions caps;
they have to do that themselves.
In practice, this will likely mean facilities built in the countries of Eastern
Europe and the former Soviet Union -- the "transition economies" -- paid for by
Western European and North American countries.
4.2.2 Strengths and weaknesses of the Kyoto Protocol
The international climate policy in the Kyoto Protocol has been both praised
and criticized. Here, six criteria are going to be used:
(1) Environmental outcome: The policy's impacts on climate change –
emissions or concentrations of greenhouse gases.
(2) Dynamic efficiency: An efficient policy would maximize the aggregate
present value of net benefits of taking actions to mitigate climate change
impacts.
(3) Dynamic cost-effectiveness: Identification of the least costly way to
achieve a given outcome.
(4) Distributional equity: Distribution of both costs and benefits across
populations, and between present and future generations.
(5) Flexibility in the presence of new information: A policy that can adapt to
new information and is not rigid, given the significant uncertainties of several
climate change aspects.
Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería ICAI Carmen Bunzl Boulet Junio 2008