Enhancing Climate Change Mitigation Efforts through Sino-American Collaboration

This article reviews the pros and cons of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) climate change mitigation regime and the polycentric initiatives that have arisen in response to phlegmatic progress in international climate change mitigation efforts. It concludes that the combined efficacy of the UNFCCC regime and these polycentric initiatives embody necessary but insufficient efforts to avert the perils associated with amplified climate change scenarios. The author concludes by proposing that a bilateral agreement between the USA and China that focuses on exploiting national commercial synergies represents a promising strategy through which to encourage enhanced commitment by these two key nations to greenhouse gas reduction. Regardless of whether or not a US-China partnership materialises, the notion of bilateral agreements between developed and developing nations-such as Japan and Brazil, or India and the EU block of nations-and of the ensuing competition among these national pairings could be a missing element to more effective climate change mitigation efforts.