Building a More Effective Global Climate Regime Through a Bottom-Up Approach
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Richard B. Stewart
This Article presents an innovative institutional strategy for global climate protection, quite distinct from, but ultimately complementary to and supportive of the currently stalled UNFCCC climate treaty negotiations. The bottom-up strategy relies on a variety of smallerscale transnational cooperative arrangements, involving not only states but sub-national jurisdictions, firms, and CSOs, to undertake activities whose primary goal is not climate mitigation but which will achieve greenhouse gas reductions as an inherent byproduct. This strategy avoids the inherent problems in securing an enforceable treaty to secure the global public good of climate protection by mobilizing other incentives - including economic self-interest, energy security, cleaner air, and furtherance of international development - to motivate such actors to cooperate on actions that will also benefit the climate. These bottom-up regimes will contribute to global climate action not only by achieving emissions reductions in the short-term, but also by linking the bottom-up regimes to the UNFCCC system through greenhouse gas monitoring and reporting systems. In these ways, the bottom-up strategy will help secure eventual agreement on a global climate treaty.
© 2013 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co.
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Introduction
- Mitigation, Adaptation or Climate Engineering?
- The Montreal Protocol Protection of Ozone and Climate
- Two Stories About E.U. Climate Change Law and Policy
- Orchestrating a Low-Carbon Energy Revolution Without Nuclear: Germany’s Response to the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis
- Transformations in Brazilian Deforestation and Climate Policy Since 2005
- An Analytical Comparison of Various Influential Models of China’s Future Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Global Role
- Differentiation in the Emerging Climate Regime
- In-Country Disparities in Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Their Significance for Politicizing a Future Global Climate Pact
- Close Examination of the Principle of Global Per-Capita Allocation of the Earth’s Ability to Absorb Greenhouse Gas
- Unilateral Carbon Taxes, Border Tax Adjustments and Carbon Leakage
- Where There’s a Will There’s a Way – A Theoretical Analysis of the Connection Between Social Policy and Environmental Performance
- Building a More Effective Global Climate Regime Through a Bottom-Up Approach
- International Governance of Climate Engineering
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Introduction
- Mitigation, Adaptation or Climate Engineering?
- The Montreal Protocol Protection of Ozone and Climate
- Two Stories About E.U. Climate Change Law and Policy
- Orchestrating a Low-Carbon Energy Revolution Without Nuclear: Germany’s Response to the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis
- Transformations in Brazilian Deforestation and Climate Policy Since 2005
- An Analytical Comparison of Various Influential Models of China’s Future Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Global Role
- Differentiation in the Emerging Climate Regime
- In-Country Disparities in Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Their Significance for Politicizing a Future Global Climate Pact
- Close Examination of the Principle of Global Per-Capita Allocation of the Earth’s Ability to Absorb Greenhouse Gas
- Unilateral Carbon Taxes, Border Tax Adjustments and Carbon Leakage
- Where There’s a Will There’s a Way – A Theoretical Analysis of the Connection Between Social Policy and Environmental Performance
- Building a More Effective Global Climate Regime Through a Bottom-Up Approach
- International Governance of Climate Engineering
