Suchergebnisse

There is a broad consensus among climate scientists that scientific evidence points to a man made climate change, and that global greenhouse gas emissions have to be reduced up to 80 percent in this century in order to avoid a "dangerous" human interference with the climate system. Whereas national and international politics agree more or less with that assessment in general, there is a discernible and growing dissent about how to cope with that challenge. The cornerstone of international climate policy, the Kyoto Protocol, is not in force, and there are indications that only a handful of states are prepared to implement their emission reduction or limitation targets. Even if it is too early for accusing the international diplomatic process to enter a dead end road, a crisis of the international climate change diplomacy seems to be impending, suggesting research about new or additional approaches to the Kyoto Architecture.$^{1}$ There are different reasons for the shortcomings and pitfalls of the national and international climate policies, which have been analysed from different perspectives: Obviously there is a lack of adequate implementation of mitigation measures and policies, indicating that climate change is not taken as serious as declaratory policies suggest; in many countries there is a perception of high mitigation costs and resistance from societal agents; another reason is a general but different threat for states stemming from climate change and doubts about the effectiveness of the agreed mitigation policies, therefore directing (at least implicit) attention more to adaptation policies - whatever adaptation may be and look like. One main problem (and a political reason for at least the USA not to ratify the protocol) is the integration of the Non-Annex I Countries, the developing and threshold-countries, into a future climate protection regime in a substantial manner - that is limiting their future emissions too. There is no foreseeable consensus about the "ifs", "whens" and "hows" of such an ...