具体描述
Even as the evidence of global warming mounts, the international response to this serious threat is coming unraveled. The United States has formally withdrawn from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol; other key nations are facing difficulty in meeting their Kyoto commitments; and developing countries face no limit on their emissions of the gases that cause global warming. In this clear and cogent book-reissued in paperback with an afterword that comments on recent events--David Victor explains why the Kyoto Protocol was never likely to become an effective legal instrument. He explores how its collapse offers opportunities to establish a more realistic alternative.
Global warming continues to dominate environmental news as legislatures worldwide grapple with the process of ratification of the December 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The collapse of the November 2000 conference at the Hague showed clearly how difficult it will be to bring the Kyoto treaty into force. Yet most politicians, policymakers, and analysts hailed it as a vital first step in slowing greenhouse warming. David Victor was not among them.
Kyoto's fatal flaw, Victor argues, is that it can work only if emissions trading works. The Protocol requires industrialized nations to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases to specific targets. Crucially, the Protocol also provides for so-called "emissions trading," whereby nations could offset the need for rapid cuts in their own emissions by buying emissions credits from other countries. But starting this trading system would require creating emission permits worth two trillion dollars--the largest single invention of assets by voluntary international treaty in world history. Even if it were politically possible to distribute such astronomical sums, the Protocol does not provide for adequate monitoring and enforcement of these new property rights. Nor does it offer an achievable plan for allocating new permits, which would be essential if the system were expanded to include developing countries.
The collapse of the Kyoto Protocol--which Victor views as inevitable--will provide the political space to rethink strategy. Better alternatives would focus on policies that control emissions, such as emission taxes. Though economically sensible, however, a pure tax approach is impossible to monitor in practice. Thus, the author proposes a hybrid in which governments set targets for both emission quantities and tax levels. This offers the important advantages of both emission trading and taxes without the debilitating drawbacks of each.
Individuals at all levels of environmental science, economics, public policy, and politics-from students to professionals--and anyone else hoping to participate in the debate over how to slow global warming will want to read this book.
作者简介
目录信息
读后感
用户评价
从文学性上讲，作者的文字功底绝对不容小觑，他似乎拥有将枯燥的政策文件转化为引人入胜散文的天赋。那种对环境变化影响的场景描绘，即使用最朴素的词汇，也能勾勒出一幅令人心悸的画面。我尤其记得其中一段描述了某个关键气候峰会中，会场内外的气氛对比，那种室内西装革履的虚假繁荣与室外民众抗议的真实焦虑，被他捕捉得淋漓尽致。这种对比的运用，使得冰冷的国际政治瞬间带上了浓厚的人文关怀色彩。很多时候，我感觉自己不是在阅读一本严肃的非虚构作品，而是在品味一部关于人类集体意志与惰性之间的史诗。这种叙事上的张力，使得即便是那些对国际气候治理流程不熟悉的人，也能被其强大的代入感所吸引，从而对全球变暖议题产生更强烈的共鸣。
这本书的论述结构简直像是一件精密的瑞士钟表，每一个齿轮——也就是每一个章节——都咬合得天衣无缝，共同驱动着整个复杂的论证过程。我特别欣赏作者在处理时间线和多方观点时的那种老练的平衡术。他没有采用那种非黑即白的绝对化表达，而是细致入微地展现了不同国家、不同利益集团在特定历史节点上的考量与博弈。当你读到某个关键的外交谈判段落时，你会清晰地感受到那种微妙的压力、隐藏的动机，以及最终妥协背后的代价。这种对细节的精准捕捉，使得原本可能显得干瘪的政策分析，变得鲜活而富有张力。它不仅仅是在记录“发生了什么”，更是在剖析“为什么会发生”。这种深度挖掘背后的驱动力，是这本书真正价值所在的地方。读到后来，你几乎能把自己代入到那些决策者的位置上，去体会那种在理想与现实之间挣扎的困境，从而对国际合作的复杂性有了更深层次的理解。
装帧和排版也是这本书的一大亮点，这往往是评价一本严肃著作时容易被忽略的细节。这本书的字体选择非常考究，行距适中，使得长篇阅读的疲劳感被降到了最低。更值得称赞的是，书中穿插的图表和数据可视化处理得极为精妙。它们不是简单地堆砌数据，而是被巧妙地整合进文本的逻辑流之中，起到画龙点睛的作用，帮助读者直观理解复杂的趋势变化。很多时候，一个精心制作的图表胜过千言万语的文字解释，这本书深谙此道。尤其是那些关于各国排放承诺与实际行动差距的对比图，直观而有力地揭示了其中的矛盾。这表明作者和出版方在制作这本书时，投入了极大的精力去确保知识的有效传递，这对于一本旨在教育公众、启迪思考的严肃作品来说，是至关重要的一环。它让你感觉这本书的每一分钱都花在了刀刃上。
这本书的封面设计着实引人注目，那种深沉的蓝色调，配上略显斑驳的字体，立刻就营造出一种严肃而又带有历史厚重感的氛围。我记得翻开第一页时，那种纸张特有的微糙触感，配合着印刷清晰的文字，让人感觉这是一部经过深思熟虑、精心打磨的作品。它不像那些快餐式的读物，读完就忘，而是让你在合上书本之后，仍旧会时不时地回想起其中的某些论断或描绘的图景。作者在开篇部分并没有急于抛出那些令人头疼的科学数据，反而像是以一种讲故事的口吻，带领我们进入一个宏大的叙事场景，为后续的深入探讨奠定了一个坚实的情感基础。这种铺陈手法非常高明，它成功地抓住了那些原本可能对复杂国际政治或气候科学不感兴趣的读者，让他们愿意继续往下探索。特别是对于那些初次接触这一领域的人来说，这种温和的引入方式无疑大大降低了阅读门槛，让人觉得即便是面对如此沉重的主题，阅读过程也是一种引人入胜的旅程，而不是一场枯燥的学术报告会。
这本书最让我感到震撼的，是它对于“失败”的定义和解读。它并没有将整个过程简单地归咎于某几个“坏蛋”或某个单一的政策失误，而是将焦点放在了系统性的、结构性的障碍上。作者似乎在告诉读者，全球性问题的解决，往往不是因为缺乏好的意图，而是因为现有的国际体系、经济激励机制，乃至人类认知的局限性，共同构建了一道难以逾越的鸿沟。读完后，我对于“进步”这个概念都有了新的思考——也许真正的进步，是缓慢的、充满反复的，并且常常以一种“不彻底的失败”形式出现。这种更成熟、更接近现实的视角，让人从最初的愤懑和失望中抽离出来，转而开始思考如何在一个充满缺陷的框架内，去寻求渐进式的改善，而不是一味地追求速成的、乌托邦式的解决方案。这种思想上的转变，是阅读这本书最宝贵的收获之一。
