ABSTRACT
Politicians, bureaucrats, scholars, and environmentalists alike have expressed their disappointment that 20 years of UN negotiations have failed to produce an effective climate agreement. This disappointment has led to suggestions that the idea of a “top-down” treaty design, aiming for a science-based “optimal” solution to the climate change problem, be abandoned in favor of a “bottom-up” design, whereby countries pledge targets for emissions reductions or limitations according to what they see as economically, politically, and administratively feasible at home. This chapter probes the pros and cons of these suggestions in the context of international climate mitigation agreements.
