Global Warming Gridlock: Creating More Effective Strategies for Protecting the Planet.

AuthorPurdon, Mark
PositionBook review

Book Review: Global Warming Gridlock--Creating More Effective Strategies for Protecting the Planet by David Victor

David Victor's recent book, Global Warming Gridlock, is a must-read for anyone serious about addressing climate change, and will appeal to international relations scholars who are interested in why climate change has proven so difficult to solve. Representing Victor's second major treatise on climate change politics in ten years, (1) Global Warming Gridlock encapsulates his latest thinking on the issue. Notably, it was selected in 2011 as one of The Economist's 'Books of the Year' and will resonate with a larger audience than much climate change scholarship. It is a book that needs to be taken seriously. Victor also writes in an uncompromising yet clear manner that readers of different political backgrounds will find direct, compelling and provocative.

While there is much to admire in Victor's book, its major limitation is that it emphasizes institutional design and policy issues over more fundamental politics. Victor's main argument is that in adopting an institutional design that worked for the relatively simple problem of the ozone layer, the architects of international climate change policy have relied on the "wrong tools for the job". (2) Because climate change is a more expensive and complex issue, the politics bear stronger similarities to issues of international trade. But as other international relations scholars have argued, even if one agrees that the (dying) Kyoto Protocol is not an optimal institution, "the fundamental question remains why the Kyoto Protocol was designed this way." (3) Probing the fundamental political assumptions of the book-- namely that state capabilities to address climate change correlates with state interests in doing so (4)--would enrich what is otherwise an excellent investigation of climate change policy.

The book is comprised of nine chapters that review various aspects of current climate change policy, in order to explain the current gridlock and map out a new strategy. For those pressed for time, the overview offered in Chapter 1 offers a succinct summary of the book's main arguments. In Chapter 2, Victor seeks a fresh approach by explaining why many assumptions about climate change politics have been wrong. Or, as Victor puts it, he 'slays' the myths that scientists, environmentalists, and engineers have assumed about climate change politics but which actually hinder efforts. (5) Briefly, scientist have promoted the myth that science can determine 'dangerous' levels of emissions which should then be adopted by policymakers, environmentalists have framed climate change as an 'environmental' problem which has led "to the use of models from the history of environmental diplomacy" that don't work well with international economic policy, (6) and engineers have focused too much on the invention of emissions-reducing technology and not the political challenges of their deployment. These myths are problematic because "[t]hey perpetuate the belief that if only societies had 'political will' or 'ambition' they could tighten their belt straps and get on with the task. The problem isn't just political will". (7) The tone is vintage Victor, potentially off-putting to the scientists, environmentalists and engineers working on climate change, but altogether refreshing. The downside is that Victor risks offending some of his intended audience. (8)

The meat of the book, however, is Chapters 3-6, where Victor reviews strategies for regulating emissions, promoting technological change as well as for adaptation, geoengineering and triage. In Chapter 3, Victor convincingly explains why policies for regulating emissions in the developed world do not follow the advice of economists, who often advocate for some variation of a carbon tax. Victor explains that politicians need to build coalitions amongst the electorate, and these efforts would be frustrated "if the policy imposes highly visible, painful costs on well-organized groups" (9) like a carbon tax. In reality, a variety of approaches are used, including cap-and-trade, taxes, subsidies, and direct regulation, which makes it difficult to know the costs and the impact on actual emissions levels. This insight--that politics prevent the adoption of predictable climate policy--ties into Victor's long-standing critique of the Kyoto Protocol's 'targets and timetables' approach to climate change. Because the regulation of emissions is in practice complicated by political calculations and diverges from the costs predicted by economists, governments find it difficult to make credible commitments to emission reduction targets. The result is that politicians either commit to targets they know they can easily achieve, but which are often not ambitious enough to make a real impact on emission trajectories, or they adopt targets that push the deadline for action well into the future.

Victor therefore believes that current climate change negotiators have it backwards: identifying ends and not means. He emphasizes that it is important to identify what governments can actually do, and then use this to inform international negotiations: the "likely structure of national policies should drive the design of international commitments". (10) However, while this formulation appears true for certain countries, especially Canada which has abandoned its Kyoto aspirations, it does not seem to fit the situation of climate leaders like the United Kingdom and Germany. (11) Victor is silent on the issue of why some countries have been able to...

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