Ecological Economics 34 (2000) 155 – 161
Book reviews
www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon
The Kyoto Protocol, Sebastian Oberthu¨r and Her-mann E. Ott, Springer, Berlin, 1999. 359 pp., ISBN-3540-66470-x
It has become fashionable to analyze the K yoto Protocol to the U nited N ations F ramework Con-vention on Climate Change, and the process that led to its adoption. This is understandable as the K yoto Protocol may become the multilateral envi-ronmental agreement that has the biggest impact on economies and societies worldwide. After G rubb et al. (1999) tried to develop a multidisci-plinary view on the Protocol, this book by two G erman researchers looks at it from a primarily political science viewpoint. It consists of three major parts.
The description of the negotiation process since R io takes up the first part. After a short introduc-tion into the science underlying the whole process of climate policy, the different interest groupings of countries are described. H owever, this descrip-tion is a bit black and white, and lacks depth — so the relevance of different domestic interest groups for the development of country positions is barely discussed. A chapter on the ‘F ramework Convention’ is followed by a narrative on the climate negotiation between the R io Conference 1992 and the situation just before the K yoto Conference in 1997 began. This includes full texts of the most relevant declarations and decisions. The subsequent two chapters sit somewhat in between, as they try to summarize disparate is-sues: climate policy-related negotiations in other fora, domestic policy developments in important countries, and movements in the non-governmen-tal organization (N G O) community. It might have
been more appropriate to integrate this in the discussion of country positions.
The last chapter of part I is the most interesting of the whole book, as it unfolds the fascinating history of the 14 days of K yoto. Both authors have been deeply involved in the negotiations and thus build on first-hand experience. They elabo-rate the developments day by day in great detail. Especially relevant is how the improbable decision on the Clean D evelopment M echanism came about by linking very diverse interests. M oreover, the important role of the Japanese hosts in quiet backdoor diplomacy is shown, which so far has been overlooked by other researchers.
The main conclusions of Oberthu¨r and Ott of the analysis of the K yoto Conference are relevant for future negotiations. The role of modern com-munication technology that accelerates the negoti-ations — they nicely describe the role of mobile phones — and enhances the power of the N G O community, and allows one to put real-time pres-sure on the process by worldwide networking, is one important result. The second is what they call ‘‘negotiation by exhaustion’’: forcing unwilling delegations to accept proposals by working through several nights. This factor, of course, favours big delegations that can rotate their nego-tiators. The third is the fact that despite the thousands of people and hundreds of interest groups participating in the negotiations, personal-ities can make a difference — at K yoto, it was chairman R aul Estrada who forcefully used his gavel to take decisions ‘by consensus’ where in fact there was no real consensus. It is also clearly shown that the complex internal coordination process of the European U nion (EU ) impeded its
Book re6iews 156
ability to keep up with the pace of negotiations, and at least once led to a discussion on issues that had already been decided in the plenary!
Part II is a detailed step-by-step analysis of the provisions of the Protocol. Sometimes, it is dry, legal stuff. H owever, the chapter on target figures includes an interesting discussion on how the numbers were negotiated in K yoto. A shortcom-ing of this part is the difficulty in evaluatshortcom-ing the importance of the different provisions as they are listed one after another. F or example, there is no general overview of the flexible instruments and their role. It is explicitly misleading to have an analysis of the pre-K yoto negotiation process on Joint Implementation put in a chapter that exclu-sively deals with Article 6 of the K yoto Protocol. Part III is a mixture of conclusions and fore-casts on the future development of climate negoti-ations. The conclusions rightly stress the role of situational factors that led to the successful out-come of K yoto, but beout-come a bit too strong, stating ‘‘the K yoto Protocol is likely to affect the life of every person living on this planet in the next century more than any other international agreements’’. This will only be the case if the K yoto Protocol is ratified and followed up by a set of other agreements with much stronger targets in the course of the next century. Possible conflicts are already outlined in the following chapter that looks at the linkages of the Protocol with other multilateral agreements. The final chapter is a concrete policy proposal, which wants the EU to combine forces with Japan and R ussia to ratify the Protocol and circumvent the U S, which is unlikely to ratify it due to domestic policy pressures. While the proposal is interesting and should be pursued further in the international negotiations, it is unclear whether it develops much force in a book oriented towards researchers.
Overall, the book serves well as reference for those that who to obtain a general overview of the K yoto Protocol and the process of climate negoti-ations. It has been carefully edited and contains no mistakes. F or the specialists, the analysis of the K yoto Conference gives some important in-sights. Interesting detail is often found in the footnotes. A shortcoming of the book is the small
role of economic analysis and the somewhat dull style, especially in part II.
References
G rubb, M ., Vrolijk, C., Brack, D ., 1999. The K yoto Protocol. Earthscan, London.
Axel M ichaelowa
H amburg Institute for Economic R esearch, N euer Jungfernstieg 21,
20347 H amburg, Germany
PII: S 0 9 2 1 - 8 0 0 9 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 1 3 1 - 2
Biodi7ersity, Conser7ation and Sustainable De7
el-opment. Principles and Practices with Asian Exam-ples, Clem Tisdell, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, Cheltenham, 1999, 263 pp. ISBN 1-85898-735-0
The author addresses a timely topic which is still high on the public agenda list of environmen-tal issues. The text is directed toward readers who want ‘‘to preserve biological diversity for its own sake’’ and who ‘‘take a more instrumentalist eco-nomics-type attitude towards nature’’, and, fur-thermore, it focuses mainly on wildlife conservation and ‘‘the integration of wildlife con-servation with policies for sustainable develop-ment’’ (p. x).
The text, which contains several previously published articles, is divided into four parts of very unequal lengths. Part I familiarizes the reader with the topic and provides a very elemen-tary overview of the linkages between biodiver-sity, conservation and sustainable development, and discusses the role that economics can play in this context.
Part II represents the conceptual core and pol-icy analysis of this text. In the first two chapters, the role of environmental and natural resource economics is discussed in achieving sustainable development by designing appropriate measures for the protection of nature conservation and biodiversity. Chapter four re-visits in more detail these concepts and issues; in particular, it
