Effective policies to prevent global warming and climatic change are urgently required by the world community. However, international negotiations on this issue repeatedly come up against the problems of allocating responsibility for the greenhouse effect, and bearing the costs of remedying the situation.;This volume offers a multidisciplinary response to the challenge. It presents the scientific, economic and political issues and goes on to describe the policy options available. The different ways of determining responsibility for greenhouse gases and calculating obligations to pay for hazards to the environment are analyzed. The contributors examine the implications for various countries, while a concluding chapter explores climatic change negotations - what is at stake, and for whom.

This report summarizes the issues and positions set out at the June 1995 RIIA workshop of negotiators and analysts, convened to examine the implications of the March 1995 Berlin conference on climate change. Selected papers from the workshop are presented in this text.

A crucial question in years to come will be how states can circumvent the obstacles to improving the current climate change, problem-solving regime. These obstacles may be related to the basically anarchic logic of the international political system, the self-serving and often short-sighted motivation of national decision-makers, and - in all probability - the high costs involved in mitigating the problem of climate change.

Papers presented at a seminar organized by Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternatives in Development in Netherlands, December 7-10, 1992.

This volume examines the roles of different actors in the formulation of international and national environmental policy. It starts from the premise that while cooperation among nation states has proven to be necessary to address many transboundary environmental issues, virtually all policies must be implemented at the national or local level. The growing interaction between national and international actors and levels of governance is an increasingly important aspect of international environmental policy. The authors examine the roles of state and non-state actors in safeguarding the environment and advancing sustainable development into the twenty-first century. Each of the five sections focuses on a different actor: states, civil society, market forces, regional arrangements and international organizations. By examining the functions and capabilities of each of these actors, the authors analyse their effectiveness and their relationship with other actors both within and outside of the UN system, providing a useful framework for understanding the multi-actor, multi-issue nature of international environmental policy.

Integrating issues of climate modelling, ecological and human dimensions of climate change, and policy implications, this volume addresses the critical problems of climate change from a Southern Hemisphere perspective. However, the spatial focus in the book is not defined just by latitude, but also by geopolitical criteria: encompassing the developing world, the tropics north of the equator, as well as regions south of the equator. The book begins by examining the geographic and geopolitical plurality of the Earth, including north and south distinctions and the science/policy plurality. A hemispheric perspective on coupled climate modelling is then discussed, providing a state-of-the-art summary of climate modelling as it pertains to the Southern Hemisphere. In addition, the book examines the interaction of humanity, the biosphere and the atmosphere, discussing the biospheric effects of climate change, possible climatic impacts of biospheric change, particularly tropical deforestation and the human health implications of climate and climate change.