Global climate change has been on the international environmental agenda for the last decade, but policymakers are still struggling to develop an effective solution to this looming problem. Climate change concerns are based on the idea that greenhouse gases (GHGs), produced primarily from the burning of fossil fuels, accumulate in the earth's atmosphere, trapping heat and causing global temperatures to rise. Although a coordinated global effort to reduce emissions is the preferred starting point, initial efforts to devise an equitable and cost-effective international regime to lower GHG emissions have yielded only mixed results. The most ambitious international regime to be developed thus far, the Kyoto Protocol, suffered a severe setback when the United States announced its withdrawal in 2001. Ironically, U.S. intransigence enabled the European Union (EU) to rally support for the Protocol, and the agreement appears likely to obtain the signatures necessary to enter into force. Russian ratification of the Protocol, anticipated for 2003, will be key to its success. The paradox is that Russia's participation and the United States's absence moves the agreement from one requiring costly emissions reductions for most to one that can be accomplished with little real effort for some countries-though others will still have to enact costly domestic measures-and with very little overall environmental benefit. As the Kyoto Protocol nears the requirements for entry into force, there is a pressing need for a look backward at how we arrived at our current predicament, and a look forward to whether the current agreement can evolve into a truly global regime that brings about real reductions from all major emitters.

© 2003 Georgetown journal of International Affairs