As the Kyoto Protocol limps along without the participation of the US and Australia, on-going climate negotiations are plagued by competing national and business interests that are creating stumbling blocks to success. Climate Change Negotiations: A Guide to Resolving Disputes and Facilitating Multilateral Cooperation asks how these persistent obstacles can be down-scaled, approaching them from five professional perspectives: a top policy-maker, a senior negotiator, a leading scientist, an international lawyer, and a sociologist who is observing the process.
The authors identify the major problems, including great power strategies (the EU, the US and Russia), leadership, the role of NGOs, capacity and knowledge-building, airline industry emissions, insurance and risk transfer instruments, problems of cost benefit analysis, the IPCC in the post-Kyoto situation, and verification and institutional design. A new key concept is introduced: strategic facilitation. 'Strategic facilitation' has a long time frame, a forward-looking orientation and aims to support the overall negotiation process rather than individual actors.
Climate Change Negotiations: A Guide to Resolving Disputes and Facilitating Multilateral Cooperation is aimed at academics, university students and practitioners who are directly or indirectly engaged in the international climate negotiation as policy makers, diplomats or experts.
Part 1: Introduction Gunnar Sjostedt and Ariel Macaspac Penetrante
Part 2: Professional Perspectives
1. The perspective of a Politician - How Decisions are Made Josef Proell, Helmut Hojesky and Werner Wutscher
2. The New Diplomacy from the Perspective of a Diplomat - Facilitation of the Post-Kyoto Climate Talks Bo Kjellen
3. Costs and Uncertanties in Climate Change Negotiations: A Scientist's Perspective Bert Bolin
4. The Observing International Lawyer Franz Cede and Gerhard Loibl
5. Climate Talks - The Observing Sociologist Guy Olivier Faure
Part 3: Stumbling blocks
6. Defining a Politically Feasible Path for Future Climate Negotiations - the EU-USA divide over the Kyoto Protocol Urs Steiner Brandt
7. Between Two Giants - Lessons from the Russian Policy on Kyoto Protocol Vasily Sokolov
8. Leadership and Climate Talks-Historical Lessons in Agenda Setting Steiner Andresen
9. GO-Participation in the Global Climate Change Decision-making Process - A Key for Facilitating Climate Talks Norichika Kanie
10. Institutional Capacity to Facilitate Climate Change Negotiations Angela Churie Kallhauge & Lisa van Well
11. Stumbling Blocks in a Sectoral Approach - Addressing the Global Warming Effect through the Airline Industry Lucas Bobes
12. Overcoming stumbling blocks: Can the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) deliver in Adaptation? Tora Skodvin
13. Common but Differentiated Responsibilities - The North-South Divide in the Climate Change Negotiations Ariel Macaspac Penetrante
14. Developing a Legal Toolkit- Institutional Options to Remove Stumbling Blocks in the Climate Change Negotiations Dirk Hanschel
15. Verification as a Precondition for Binding Commitments - Facilitation through Trust Larry MacFaul
16. Difficulties of Benefit-Cost Analysis in Climate Negotiations: Stumbling Blocks for Reaching an Agreement Charles Pearson
17. Proposal for Insurance for Facilitation of Adaptation Joanne Linnerooth-Bayer, M.J. Mace & Reinhard Mechler Part 4: Conclusion: Strategic Facilitation of Climate Talks Gunnar Sjostedt and Ariel Macaspac Penetrante
Gunnar Sjöstedt is Director of Studies at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Stockholm, and a member of the steering committee of the Processes of International Negotiations Program at IIASA. He has published extensively on international negotiation on environmental and economic affairs.
Ariel Macaspac Penetrante is a research fellow in the Institute for Infrastructure and Resources Management at the University of Leipzig in Germany.