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As governments ratified the Kyoto Protocol, very few of them had clear ideas about how they would meet its emissions regulations. A period of active experimentation is now under way, with much emphasis on the sharing of information as both regulators and regulated industries try to learn what works and what doesn't. The EU Emissions Trading Scheme is forcing rapid decision on its members, for the system is already in operation. Limits go into effect in 2008 for all 36 parties to Kyoto, which include all of the industrialized countries with the exception of the United States and Australia.
In the United States, the federal government has restricted itself to purely voluntary measures while about half of the states have adopted policies intended to slow climate change. The most forceful is California, which is now fighting in the federal courts to establish its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. If it succeeds, other states are likely to follow its example. In the Northeast, nine states under the leadership of New York are setting up a Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to curb emissions of carbon dioxide from power plants.
In all of these cases the central issue is to design policy that will achieve the greatest reduction in greenhouse emissions with the least disruption of the economy. As the many experiments now in progress around the world produce data reflecting actual experience, policymakers will have an increasingly firm base on which to make decisions.
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