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Dismantling of a breakthrough: the Kyoto Protocol - just symbolic policy!

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  • Böhringer, Christoph
  • Vogt, Carsten

Abstract

We show that U.S. withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol is straightforward under political economy considerations. The reason is that U.S. compliance costs exceed low willingness to pay for dealing with global warming in the U.S. The withdrawal had a crucial impact on the concretion of the Protocol prior to its likely ratification at the end of 2002. Remaining non-EU Parties to the Kyoto Protocol gained veto bargaining power and, thus, were successful in asserting far reaching concessions from the EU on sink credits and tradability of emission rights. Taking these concessions into account, the Kyoto Protocol was essentially reduced to a symbolic treaty that codifies more or less business-as-usual emissions and makes compliance a rather cheap deal.

Suggested Citation

  • Böhringer, Christoph & Vogt, Carsten, 2002. "Dismantling of a breakthrough: the Kyoto Protocol - just symbolic policy!," ZEW Discussion Papers 02-25, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:872
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    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/24781/1/dp0225.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Michael Finus & Alejandro Caparrós (ed.), 2015. "Game Theory and International Environmental Cooperation," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 15345.
    2. Christoph Bohringer, 2002. "Climate Politics from Kyoto to Bonn: From Little to Nothing?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2), pages 51-71.
    3. Congleton, Roger D, 1992. "Political Institutions and Pollution Control," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(3), pages 412-421, August.
    4. Christoph Böhringer & Michael Finus & Carsten Vogt (ed.), 2002. "Controlling Global Warming," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2535.
    5. Christoph Böhringer & Thomas Rutherford, 2002. "Carbon Abatement and International Spillovers," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 22(3), pages 391-417, July.
    6. Bohringer, Christoph, 2000. "Cooling down hot air: a global CGE analysis of post-Kyoto carbon abatement strategies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(11), pages 779-789, September.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Sven Rudolph & Friedrich Schneider, 2013. "Political barriers of implementing carbon markets in Japan: A Public Choice analysis and the empirical evidence before and after the Fukushima nuclear disaster," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 15(2), pages 211-235, April.
    3. Michael Finus, 2004. "Modesty Pays: Sometimes!," Working Papers 2004.68, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    climate policy; political economy; willingness to pay;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q43 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Energy and the Macroeconomy
    • D58 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Computable and Other Applied General Equilibrium Models
    • H40 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - General

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