AnInnovativeOutline for Global Warming

Abstract

Globalization has made the world more and more interdependent, and the need to work together to solve common challenges has intensified. But as I point out in my forthcoming book, Making Globalization Work, if we do not do anything about the most urgent common environmental problem: global warming, it will do us no good to address our common global economic problems. Nine years ago, in Kyoto, the planet took an important first step towards reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases that are driving global warming. Yet in spite of Kyoto’s successes, the United States, the world’s biggest polluter, refuses to weigh in and continues to pollute more and more, while the developed nations, which in the not so distant future will be contributing 50 percent or more of global emissions, have been left without clear promises to do so. It is now clear that something more is required. Here, I suggest an initiative to deal first with the emissions of the United States and second with developed nations.