Developing nations need to play a "meaningful" role in the post-Kyoto Protocol international framework on climate change, even though it may be difficult for them to accept — at least in the near future — binding caps on their greenhouse gas emissions, James Bartis, a senior policy researcher for the RAND Corporation, told the Feb. 1 symposium.
Bartis noted how the U.S. Senate — before the U.S. government negotiators agreed to the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 — passed a resolution signaling that it would not ratify a treaty that did not address greenhouse gas emissions from developing countries.
While imposing numerical targets for cuts in emissions by industrialized nations, the treaty, from which the U.S. later pulled out, does not have any emission caps for developing countries.