From Kyoto To Paris: How Bottom-Up Regulation Could Revitalize the UNFCCC

By Luke Grunbaum

Luke Grunbaum is a 3L at the UCLA School of Law, where he is Editor-in-Chief of the UCLA Journal of Environmental Law & Policy.  Click here to see the original post and leave a comment. 

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The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) establishes the basic principles and goals for future international agreements on climate change.  However, incorporating the ambitious policies and provisions of the UNFCCC into a binding global agreement has proven incredibly challenging.  Previous attempts to create a comprehensive international climate agreement (most notably the Kyoto Protocol) have been largely unsuccessful, and many believe that the top-down approach of prior eras must either be updated or completely abandoned.  This article will briefly explain some of the inadequacies of prior top-down regimes, examine the shift towards a more bottom-up approach in UNFCCC negotiations, and elaborate on some of the strengths and weaknesses of this new approach.

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