front cover of Climate Change Policy
Climate Change Policy
A Survey
Edited by Stephen H. Schneider, Armin Rosencranz, and John O. Niles
Island Press, 2002

Questions surrounding the issue of climate change are evolving from "Is it happening?" to "What can be done about it?" The primary obstacles to addressing it at this point are not scientific but political and economic; nonetheless a quick resolution is unlikely.

Ignorance and confusion surrounding the issue -- including a lack of understanding of climate science, its implications for the environment and society, and the range of policy options available -- contributes to the political morass over dealing with climate change in which we find ourselves. Climate Change Policy addresses that situation by bringing together a wide range of new writings from leading experts that examine the many dimensions of the topics most important in understanding climate change and policies to combat it. Chapters consider:

  • climate science in historical perspective
  • analysis of uncertainties in climate science and policy
  • the economics of climate policy
  • North-South and intergenerational equity issues
  • the role of business and industry in climate solutions
  • policy mechanisms including joint implementation, emissions trading, and the so-called clean development mechanism
Regardless of the fate of the Kyoto Protocol, the issues raised in that debate will persist as new climate protection regimes emerge; this volume treats most of those topics. Tying the chapters together is a shared conclusion that climate change is a real and serious problem, and that we as a society have an obligation not merely to adapt to it but to mitigate it in whatever intelligent ways we can develop. Cost-effectiveness is not disdained, but neither is the imperative for valuing species threatened by rapid climate change.
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front cover of Climate Change Science and Policy
Climate Change Science and Policy
Stephen H. Schneider, Armin Rosencranz, Michael D. Mastrandrea, and Kristin Kuntz-Duriseti
Island Press, 2009
This is the most comprehensive and current reference resource on climate change available today. It features 49 individual chapters by some of the world’ s leading climate scientists. Its five sections address climate change in five dimensions: ecological impacts; policy analysis; international considerations; United States considerations; and mitigation options to reduce carbon emissions.

 

In many ways, this volume supersedes the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Many important developments too recent to be treated by the 2007 IPCC documents are covered here. This book considers not only the IPCC report, but also results of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Bali in December 2007, as well as even more recent research data. Overall, Climate Change Science and Policy paints a direr picture of the effects of climate change than do the IPCC reports. It reveals that climate change has progressed faster than the IPCC reports anticipated and that the outlook for the future is bleaker than the IPCC reported.

  

In his prologue, John P. Holdren writes that the widely-used term “ global warming” is a misnomer. He suggests that a more accurate label would be “ global climatic disruption.” This volume, he states, will equip readers with all they need to know to rebut the misrepresentations being propagated by “ climate-change skeptics.” No one, he writes, will be a skeptic after reading this book.

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