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"In 1992 the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro produced a landmark treaty on climate change that proposed stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. The agreement ratified by more than 186 countries, including the United States, prompted numerous subsequent rounds of climate negotiations aimed at reducing emissions from industrialized countries. Yet the treaty has had little measurable impact, and its implementing agreement, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, has been rejected by the United States and spurned by developing countries.". "According to Warwick J. McKibbin and Peter J. Wilcoxen, the international stalemate in climate negotiations stems from a fundamental flaw in the Kyoto Protocol; the treaty's lack of cost controls. Climate policy that lacks cost controls will never be ratified and implemented by the United States or many other developed countries.". "Climate Change Policy after Kyoto outlines an alternative policy that provides incentives for reducing greenhouse gas emissions while avoiding unreasonably large costs. It would combine a fixed number of tradable, long-term emissions permits with an elastic supply of short-term permits, good for only one year. Each country participating in the policy would be allowed to distribute a specified number of long-term emissions permits that could be bought, sold, or leased without restriction. The permits could be given away, auctioned, or traded among firms or bought and retired by environmental groups."--BOOK JACKET.