Governing Low-Carbon Development and the Economy: Multilevel Environmental Governance for Sustainable Development

Based on results of the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol—which requires participating industrial countries to limit their carbon emissions—this book recommends creating a global regulatory regime that would set emission targets for all nations. The authors argue that once these targets and the policies for meeting them are established, countries will be spurred to develop lower-carbon-producing economies. Targets and policies and their implementation would vary from country to country, leading to different types of economies.
The book focuses on the role that local governments would play, how domestic policies would be created and integrated with broader regional or national ones, what shape the political and administrative systems would take, technological innovations related to the policies, and the revenue sources necessary to rebuild infrastructure.
The book discusses experiences in Japan primarily, along with results from collaborative research between Japan and the Republic of Korea and comparative studies between Japan and Germany. The chapters adopt different perspectives, looking at the issue from the discipline of economics as well as a more sociological, neo-institutionalist viewpoint.