Scott Barrett
Scott Barrett is Professor of
Environmental Economics and
International Political Economy at the
Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced
International Studies, Johns Hopkins
University. He was educated in the
US, Canada, and Britain, and taught
previously at London Business School.
He is the author of Environment and
Statecraft (forthcoming, Oxford
University Press).
Papers Published in World Economics:
Towards a Better Climate Treaty
The Kyoto Protocol is an example of how not to construct a treaty. Negotiators began by focusing on the short term, agreeing that the industrialized countries
should cut their emissions of greenhouse gases by about 5% relative to 1990 by
2008–2012. Then they agreed that these cuts should be achieved cost-effectively,
incorporating ‘flexible mechanisms’. Only later did they worry about whether the
treaty created incentives for broad participation and full compliance. Negotiators should have approached things the other way around. They should have begun
by thinking of how they could achieve both broad participation and full
compliance, and of how they could reduce emissions in the long term. Had they
done so, a better, more effective treaty would have been negotiated. In this essay
the author explains why Kyoto is unlikely to succeed in mitigating climate
change. He also proposes an alternative treaty design that is likely to work better.
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