ABSTRACT
This chapter is about how international coordination over climate mitigation efforts might move forward, focusing primarily on the issue of cross-country comparability of mitigation efforts. Besides the carbon price, mitigation effort metrics could focus on other policy parameters, such as the level of a renewable power mandate, or a sector-specific performance standard. Alternatively, the metric might focus on outcomes, such as emission levels or emission intensities, or derivatives of policy outcomes, such as implicit carbon prices, emission abatement from a business-as-usual (BAU) emission level, or abatement costs. The EU Emission Trading Scheme is the largest, but not sole, policy implemented to ensure EU member states' compliance with emission targets under the Kyoto Protocol. The centerpiece of the Kyoto Protocol and the focus of most environmental stake-holders is emission levels. The Kyoto Protocol framed comparability in terms of percent reductions in emissions from a historic base year for most industrialized countries.
