Monday 12 May 2008 at 1300
Environmental Law Discussion Group
Climate Change and Collective Action
Speaker: Professor Daniel Cole, R. Bruce Townsend Professor of Law at the Indiana University School of Law at Indianapolis
Venue: Corpus Christi College Franekel Room
Sandwich Lunch provided: RSVP liz.fisher@law.ox.ac.uk Climate change may present the greatest collective action problem the international community has ever confronted. The unequal distribution of expected costs and benefits from climate change creates different incentives for different countries, and those countries can be expected to bargain in their own perceived interests. This paper explains how Kyoto's notorious weaknesses are rooted in unresolved collective action problems, which are far more severe than those the international community confronted when it negotiated the far more successful Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer. Two recommendations are offered for ameliorating the collective action problems confronting climate change negotiators. Policy makers should incorporate into their cost-benefit calculations: (1) low-probability, high-magnitude climate 'catastrophes,' which could affect any or all countries; and (2) the secondary effects of climate change, including potential threats to national security. Due consideration of potential catastrophic impacts and secondary effects of climate change should better align the interests of the parties, including the USA, and ameliorate collective-action impediments to a stronger, more effective international climate change regime. At the very least, it should raise the lowest common denominator of the parties.
For more information please contact: Liz Fisher
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Organised by the Environmental Law Discussion Group
