V. Policy Challenges Arising from Climate Change

Most OECD countries are committed to reducing their emissions of greenhouse gases There is increasing scientific consensus that global warming is under way, linked at least in part to human economic activity. The considerable attention paid to this problem over the past ten years resulted not least from the 1992 United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Despite this attention, however, current indications are that emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) are rising faster than expected, and that the initial UNFCCC aim for emissions for the year 2000 will be substantially exceeded in almost all OECD countries. Moreover, the date by which stabilisation of world emissions (let alone the reductions necessary to stabilise atmospheric GHG concentrations) can be expected is receding into the future. The Kyoto Protocol, agreed in 1997 but yet to enter into force, adopted binding targets involving cuts in emissions, relative to the 1990 level, for the period 2008-12.