Can the Eu Persuade the Us to Rejoin the Kyoto Agreement?

Abstract

The aim of this work is to identify a clear policy proposal for how the EU may persuade the US to rejoin the Kyoto agreement. Accordingly the US' three major concerns in The Hague about the Kyoto Protocol have been investigated with the following result. Firstly, the EU should scrap the supplementarity principle of 50% domestic reduction or at least reduce it considerably. This would lower costs particularly by enhancing more free trade with emission permits. Secondly, the EU should support the US proposal to incorporate carbon sinks into the Protocol. Thirdly, the developing countries should be persuaded to make binding commitments preventing any carbon leakage which is harmful to the American economy. Together these measures should minimize US compliance costs, and ensure for the US a positive net gain from participation and thereby provide an incentive to rejoin. The overall result is that the EU necessarily has to make concessions to persuade the World's largest CO₂ emitter to join international climate negotiations again. This would ensure environmental improvement and co-operation in contrast to the present situation of US refusal to participate.