Evaluating Possibilities for an International Carbon Markets Regime
Professor Kathleen Callahan, the former EPA Deputy Regional Administrator of Region II, has been advising the group working on the Possibilities of International Carbon Markets with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). EDF is a non-profit environmental advocacy organization, which was founded in 1967 when scientists and attorneys coalesced in a successful legal effort to ban the use of DDT. Since then, climate change policy has been a core mission of EDF. To assist EDF as it moves to define its priority areas of attention, students in this Workshop group assessed and analyzed past as well as existing international regimes, the accomplishments of these regimes, and strategic approaches and commonalities among climate change concerns. Students have been regularly meeting with the EDF staff, and conducting interviews with recommended experts. The team has been investigating the obstacles to international consensus, the effects of U.S. inaction, and the benefits of technological and financial assistance to developing nations. In their conclusion, the group recommended pursuing negotiations with relevant stakeholders outside of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), as well as collaboration between China and the U.S. to create an effective climate agreement.