Kyoto2

How to manage the global greenhouse

Oliver Tickell, Zed Books, paperback, 293 pages, £10.99

This book puts forward a proposal on how to make the new Copenhagen climate treaty, due to be signed next year, work more effectively than the Kyoto Treaty.

The Kyoto Treaty was signed in 1997, but it did not come into force until 2005, and then without US and Australian backing. It set very mild targets for developed countries but none for the developing world. It was also widely considered weak on enforcement and provided few funds for long-term investment or adaptation. The author concludes that Kyoto, while a symbolically important treaty, failed to stem the growth in worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.

Tickell proposes doing away with the territorial allocation of targets by country, and instead holding companies accountable for their pollution through the auctioning of permits.

These permits would commit firms to limiting emissions “upstream” — as close to the point of production of the gases. The revenue from the sale of permits — estimated at $1 trillion — would be used to fund adaptation programmes.

The book is marred by its reliance on market mechanisms to deliver the required improvements, though the author concedes that regulation and standards would have a role to play. But it remains unclear how big businesses would be made to sign up to such a scheme.