Global warming dominates environmental news as legislatures worldwide begn the arduous process of deciding whether to ratify the December 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Though not eveyrone was satisfied with the specifics of Kyoto, most politicians, policymakers, and analysts hailed it as a vital first step in slowing greenhouse warming. David Victor was not among them. In this clear and cogent book, Victor explains why the Kyoto Protocol is unlikely to enter into force and how its failure will offer the opportunity to establish a more realistic alternative.

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 grenhouse 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 emissions 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 esesntial 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 taht 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 advantage 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.