ABSTRACT
This chapter explores regulatory frameworks across three broad regions: the UK and Western Europe, Eastern Europe and North America and address the role of international organizations, such as the United Nations, in setting the atmospheric pollution agenda. In 1997, the UK government adopted a National Air Quality Strategy which was required under the terms of the 1995 Environment Act. The strategy set specific standards for acceptable concentrations of a range of air pollutants and target dates for meeting these standards. The emergence of issues which are clearly global in scale has led to the development of policy structures to operate at this scale. The United Nations, through the Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), has been in the forefront of these developments. The chapter also considers the increasing role of economic instruments, especially emissions trading.
