Transcript 8 Conclusion

8 Conclusion
Creating Incentives
& Removing Obstacles
Technology diffusion and unilateral
responses to multilateral failures
• It has not been possible to reach adequate
multilateral agreements with respect to:
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climate change finance
intellectual property rights for plant varieties
multilateral investment agreement
international trade in environmental goods and
services
• Multilateral progress in all of these areas would
facilitate technology diffusion and diminish the
need for unilateral action.
Unilateral, multilateral
• Unilateral measures can serve as
catalysts for multilateral action on climate
change.
• Climate change agreements should either
comply with or prompt modifications to
international economic law.
• Risk of regulatory capture needs to be
addressed for both.
Plurilateral/sectoral alternative
• Encompassing major players:
– environmental goods and services
– GHG emissions
• MFN basis
• Open for others to join later
Anti-carbon duties?
• Antidumping Agreement and the SCM
Agreement’s rules on countervailing duties
might serve as a model for regulating use
anti-carbon duties.
• Measurement of carbon footprints may be
difficult, but investigating authorities are
already set up to measure complex
economic and legal issues.
‘Climate Sensitivity Index’
• Policy depends on maturity of financial markets
or national regulatory institutions
• Incentives to take mitigation and adaptation
measures are asymmetrical
• Developed/developing typology ignores:
– the global nature of problem
– potential seriousness of the consequences
– great variation among countries in vulnerability to and
capacity to adapt to climate change
– financial and technological endowments of countries
change over time
• Assign responsibility on an objective scale.
Unilateral trade measures
• Precede with good faith efforts to reach a
negotiated solution.
• Degree of urgency may require greater or lesser
effort to negotiate.
• Apply flexibly to take into account different
conditions among countries.
• Comply with transparency and procedural
fairness.
• Design & apply in accordance with GATT Article
XX to minimize risk of regulatory capture.
Uncertain future, grave risks
• We can estimate:
– future GHG concentrations
– probability of a range of temperature increases,
• BUT we cannot say precisely:
– what the temperature increase will be,
– how that temperature increase will vary from one part
of the planet to another
– what the ecological and economic effects will be.
Focus on risks, not uncertainty
• Do not debate whether we have
underestimated or overestimated the
proximity and severity of these risks.
• Address risks through mitigation and
adaptation:
– Create incentives for multilateral action.
– Remove obstacles to financing dissemination
of mitigation and adaptation technologies.
Thank you!