Can New Institutions Solve Atmospheric Problems? Confronting Acid Rain, Ozone Depletion and Climate Change

Abstract

Some efforts to create international institutions to solve large-scale environmental problems are more successful than others. Although methodological problems plague efforts to arrive at precise measurements in this realm, it is not difficult to produce rough-and-ready assessments of relative success. By 1997, twelve years after the signing of the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer and less ten years after the signing of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, worldwide production of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) had dropped from a high of about 1.2 million t yr-1 to less than 160 000 t; it is probable that production of these chemicals will continue to decline during the foreseeable future (see Fig. 14.1).1 During the six years following the signing of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992, on the other hand, worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, rose between 7 and 8% (see Fig. 14.2). Nor has the signing of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the first measure committing participants to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions within well-defined timeframes, reversed this trend.