Climate change is a uniquely difficult environmental problem. Its difficulty recognizes the global scale of the environmental consequences that climate change might bring forth combined with the technological challenges and economic and political difficulty the world community faces in designing public policy in response to this threat.

The fact that the major greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted from every country on the globe means that no one county acting alone to limit CO2 emissions can solve this problem. Rather, many countries acting in formal or informal collaboration are necessary to fashion a solution.

Certainly, the most important action the world as a whole has taken in two decades of efforts to address climate change is the widespread ratification of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and, under the UNFCCC umbrella, the Kyoto Protocol. While the UNFCCC establishes “aspirational goals” with respect to climate change the Kyoto Protocol establishes legally binding targets and time tables for countries' specific emissions reductions.

The Kyoto Protocol came into force February 2005. In the words of the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, “this is a historic step forward in the world’s efforts to combat a truly global threat.” While historic, the protocol is only a step, and only a portion of the world is taking this step. The United States, the world’s current largest greenhouse gas emitter, and China, India, and the rest of the developing world (likely to be the largest future emitters) have not accepted binding greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

While actions continue to take place at the international level, the bulk of action to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change takes place at the country level. Governments, businesses and individuals are engaged in wide-ranging activities to develop solutions and undertake actions in an effort to mitigate the threat posed by climate change.

International
The UN-based negotiations that produced the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol remain the center of the policy process. But other initiatives are taking shape outside them, such as the U.S. proposal for a technology transfer agreement. Researchers at RFF are actively tracking the development of decisions on international climate change policy post-Kyoto.

United States
Although the United States has refused to join the Kyoto Protocol or to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, it wants to play a major role in global climate policy and promote its preference for relying on technological development. As solutions are sought at various scales in a variety of sectors, RFF researchers are analyzing proposed actions and evaluating current efforts of federal, state, and local governments as well as American businesses.

EU, OECD, and Russia
Europe is the home of the strongest support for Kyoto, with the other OECD countries (except the United States and Australia) and Russia -- the countries with highly developed industrial economies -- following with varying degrees of enthusiasm. RFF is studying the policies these countries are constructing to meet their Kyoto goals.

Developing Countries
Since Kyoto does not put emissions limits on the big developing countries, where emissions are now rising rapidly, bringing them into participation has become the central issue in world climate politics. RFF's research focuses on the overlapping subjects of climate stabilization and air pollution control in both China and India.