Although developing countries face a drastic increase in their greenhouse gas emissions, mitigating actions against climate change do not rank high among their priorities. The obvious reason lies in the necessity for them to continue the development process, which is characterised by pressing...

This paper is the concluding chapter of Rights, Rents and Fairness: Allocation in the European Emissions Trading Scheme, edited by the co-authors and forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. The main objective of this paper is to distill the lessons and general principles to be learnt from...

Sectoral approaches are proposed as a means to broaden the global scope of greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation to developing countries. Market mechanisms are put forward in that context to create incentives for mitigation in developing countries beyond the existing Clean Development Mechanism (CDM),...

Determining comparability of effort between mitigation actions and targets proposed by different countries is an ongoing issue for international climate negotiations. A number of indicators have been proposed to reflect comparability of effort and differences in national circumstances; key...

The Cancún Agreements formalise a collective commitment by developed countries to provide new and additional funding for action on climate change in developing countries both in the short- and longer-term. This collective financial commitment requires a system to measure, report and verify...

The Cancun Agreements outlined the list of topics to be included in biennial reports and indicated that guidelines for them were to be developed, but provided limited guidance on their structure and content. This paper proposes a structure for biennial reports for both developed and developing...

This paper outlines options for new reporting guidelines for national communications from Annex I and non-Annex I countries, both for “full” national communications and biennial “updates”. These reports can facilitate the sharing of information between Parties and may be used to assess...

This paper reviews proposals for the design of sectoral and related market mechanisms that are being debated both in the UNFCCC negotiations and in different domestic legislative contexts. Decisions on the design and scope of the mechanisms in the UNFCCC negotiations would affect the future...

International trade negotiations have recently tackled the issue of possible free trade restrictions, justified - among others - on the basis of environmental concerns. Also, some analyses of international environmental agreements (especially in the field of climate change) have highlighted the...