Beyond Kyoto: A Symposium Addressing the Future of International Climate Change Policy
The Environmental Law Society and the Journal for International Law and Policy are co-hosting the spring 2008 symposium addressing the increasingly eminent issue of climate change. The aim of the symposium is to address issues surrounding the development of an international agreement on climate change that will succeed the Kyoto protocol. The symposium will host expert panelists ranging from economists, lawyers, professors and industry insiders to address issues surrounding the formation of an international climate change treaty.
The Kyoto protocol set out a system of stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the Earth’s atmosphere. Countries that ratified the protocol agreed to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gasses by engaging in an emissions cap and trade system. Despite such efforts, Kyoto has failed to achieve its objectives of stabilizing green house gasses and negotiations for a post-Kyoto agreement are already underway.
The first panel will discuss what a successor to Kyoto may look like and how such an agreement will address the problem of climate change. The discussion will address mistakes made by Kyoto and the types of commitments that an international treaty will impose on nation-states regarding greenhouse gas emissions.
With a new climate change agreement comes an inevitable impact on societies and economies. A player of growing importance in the economy is the industry of clean technology. Innovation and investment in clean technology is rising at a rapid rate. The second panel will address the growth of this industry and the legal transactions that follow.
Concluding the symposium, the final panel will discuss the relevance of international climate change agreements to the daily practice of law in California and how litigating climate change issues will affect California’s environmental policies.
Panelists will speak to an audience of lawyers, professors, professionals, law students, and graduate students to discuss the future of international environmental law and climate change.