international relations

· To what degree is the information provided consistent with Keohane’s theory of international relations? 


· Guidelines 
Length: The essay should be 4-5 full pages in length. Please number the pages. There is no need for a fluffy introductory paragraph. Just give the reader your analysis.

· 
 Format: Your essay should be stapled and double-spaced, with 1-inch margins (the same as this page) and 12-point Times New Roman font. Note that the default in Word is 1.25-inch margins.

· 
 Scope: This is not a research paper. You are not expected to draw on literature other than the books by Waltz and Keohane that we have discussed in class and the news reports below. You do not need to know anything more about the topic than what is provided below. Remember to stick to the topic. The question is not about your view of the issue; it is about how the two authors would be able to explain the facts below in light of their theories. 
Textual grounding: Make sure your argument is grounded in the two books. Support your argument with explicit references to particular passages/sections/chapters from the texts. Information you got in the lectures should be supported explicitly by the texts themselves. I recommend using good, short quotations from the texts every now and then. Anytime you reference an argument that the author makes, you must provide a citation. As long as you are referencing Waltz or Keohane, you do not need to provide a full citation.

Example: Keohane asserts that hegemony is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the emergence of cooperation among states (5).

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U.S. and China Reach Climate Accord After Months of Talks

By MARK LANDLER NOV. 11, 2014 The New York Times

BEIJING — China and the United States made common cause on Wednesday against the threat of climate change, staking out an ambitious joint plan to curb carbon emissions as a way to spur nations around the world to make their own cuts in greenhouse gases.

The landmark agreement, jointly announced here by President Obama and President Xi Jinping, includes new targets for carbon emissions reductions by the United States and a first-ever commitment by China to stop its emissions from growing by 2030.

Administration officials said the agreement, which was worked out quietly between the United States and China over nine months and included a letter from Mr. Obama to Mr. Xi proposing a joint approach, could galvanize efforts to negotiate a new global climate agreement by 2015.

It was the signature achievement of an unexpectedly productive two days of meetings between the leaders. Mr. Obama and Mr. Xi also agreed to a military accord designed to avert clashes between Chinese and American planes and warships in the tense waters off the Chinese coast, as well as an understanding to cut tariffs for technology products.

A climate deal between China and the United States, the world’s No. 1 and No. 2 carbon polluters, is viewed as essential to concluding a new global accord. Unless Beijing and Washington can resolve their differences, climate experts say, few other countries will agree to mandatory cuts in emissions, and any meaningful worldwide pact will be likely to founder.

“The United States and China have often been seen as antagonists,” said a senior official, speaking in advance of Mr. Obama’s remarks. “We hope that this announcement can usher in a new day in which China and the U.S. can act much more as partners.”

As part of the agreement, Mr. Obama announced that the United States would emit 26 percent to 28 percent less carbon in 2025 than it did in 2005. That is double the pace of reduction it targeted for the period from 2005 to 2020.

China’s pledge to reach peak carbon emissions by 2030, if not sooner, is even more remarkable. To reach that goal, Mr. Xi pledged that so-called clean energy sources, like solar power and windmills, would account for 20 percent of China’s total energy production by 2030.

Administration officials acknowledged that Mr. Obama could face opposition to his plans from a Republican-controlled Congress. While the agreement with China needs no congressional ratification, lawmakers could try to roll back Mr. Obama’s initiatives, undermining the United States’ ability to meet the new reduction targets.

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Still, Mr. Obama’s visit, which came days after a setback in the midterm elections, allowed him to reclaim some of the momentum he lost at home. As the campaign was turning against the Democrats last month, Mr. Obama quietly dispatched John Podesta, a senior adviser who oversees climate policy, to Beijing to try to finalize a deal.

For all the talk of collaboration, the United States and China also displayed why they are still fierce rivals for global economic primacy, promoting competing free-trade blocs for the Asian region even as they reached climate and security deals.

The maneuvering came during a conference of Pacific Rim economies held in Beijing that has showcased China’s growing dominance in Asia, but also the determination of the United States, riding a resurgent economy, to reclaim its historical role as a Pacific power.

Adding to the historic nature of the visit, Mr. Obama and Mr. Xi were scheduled to give a joint news conference on Wednesday that will include questions from reporters — a rare concession by the Chinese leader to a visiting American president.

On Tuesday evening, Mr. Xi invited Mr. Obama to dinner at his official residence, telling his guest he hoped they had laid the foundation for a collaborative relationship — or, as he more metaphorically put it, “A pool begins with many drops of water.”

Greeting Mr. Obama at the gate of the walled leadership compound next to the Forbidden City, Mr. Xi squired him across a brightly lighted stone bridge and into the residence. Mr. Obama told the Chinese president that he wanted to take the relationship “to a new level.”

“When the U.S. and China are able to work together effectively,” he added, “the whole world benefits.”

But as the world witnessed this week, it is more complicated than that. Mr. Xi won approval Tuesday from the 21 countries of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum to study the creation of a China-led free-trade zone that would be an alternative to Mr. Obama’s Trans- Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trading bloc that excludes China.

On Monday, Mr. Obama met with members of that group here and claimed progress in negotiating the partnership, a centerpiece of his strategic shift to Asia.

Negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership are much further along than those for the nascent Chinese plan, known as the Free Trade Area of Asia Pacific, and some analysts said the approval by the Pacific Rim nations of a two-year study was mainly a gesture to the Chinese hosts to give them something to announce at the meeting.

For all the jockeying, the biggest trade headline was a breakthrough in negotiations with China to eliminate tariffs on information technology products, from video-game consoles and computer software to medical equipment and semiconductors.

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“We’re going to take what’s been achieved here in Beijing back to Geneva to work with our W.T.O. partners,” said Michael B. Froman, the United States trade representative. “While we don’t take anything for granted, we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to work quickly” to conclude an expansion of the agreement, known as the Information Technology Agreement.

On Wednesday morning, Mr. Xi formally welcomed Mr. Obama at a ceremony in the Great Hall of the People; they later toasted each other at a state banquet.

Administration officials said Mr. Obama had pressed Mr. Xi to resume a United States-China working group on cybersecurity issues, which abruptly stopped its discussions after the United States charged several Chinese military officers with hacking.

“We did see a chill in the cyber dialogue,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser. “We do believe it’s better if there’s a mechanism for dialogue.”

On Tuesday, Mr. Obama credited APEC with originating the work on reducing tariffs, saying, “The United States and China have reached an understanding that we hope will contribute to a rapid conclusion of the broader negotiations in Geneva.”

Talks with China over expanding the 1997 accord on information technology broke down last year over the scope of the products covered by the agreement. But after intensive negotiations leading up to Mr. Obama’s visit, Mr. Froman said, the Americans and the Chinese agreed Monday evening to eliminate more than 200 categories of tariffs.

While the United States still exports many high-technology goods, China is the world’s dominant exporter of electronics and has much to gain from an elimination of tariffs. Taiwan, South Korea and Japan increasingly find themselves supplying China’s huge electronics industry, deepening their dependence on decisions made in Beijing.

The administration estimated that expanding the Information Technology Agreement would create up to 60,000 jobs in the United States by eliminating tariffs on goods that generate $1 trillion in sales a year. About $100 billion of those products are American-made. The administration faces a longer path on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, including whether Mr. Obama will obtain fast-track trade authority from Congress. That could make it easier for the United States to extract concessions from other countries, since they would have more confidence that the treaty would be ratified by Congress.

While Mr. Froman conceded that sticking points remained, he said, “It’s become clearer and clearer what the landing zones are.” He said that Mr. Obama would seek fast-track authority, but that the best way for him to win congressional passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership would be to negotiate the best deal.

Keith Bradsher and Chris Buckley contributed reporting from Hong Kong, and Coral Davenport from Washington.

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After U.S.-China climate deal, focus on India to follow suit

(Reuters) - After this week's carbon deal between the United States and China, No. 3 emitter India faces growing pressure to devise a clear strategy and step out of China's shadow during pivotal global climate talks.

India has given no sign what kind of commitment it will make to address climate change in a global agreement. Officials previously stressed that India would likely opt to slow emissions growth rather than set a peak year on the grounds it is entitled to economic growth.

That position might no longer be tenable after China - often India's ally in resisting specific pledges at talks to reach a global accord - said this week its carbon emissions would peak by no later than 2030.

President Barack Obama deepened U.S. cuts to 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, a goal it should be on track to meet with proposed new rules on power plant emissions.

India's new Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has already set renewable energy targets for the country, including using solar energy to ensure full energy access by 2019, but analysts and experts are expecting more definitive commitments.

The U.S.-China deal "frees up India to say what it believes is an equitable stance ... now that China is saying what it plans to do," said Alden Meyer, director of international policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

While Modi's pledge to boost renewable energy is welcomed by activists, New Delhi has stressed it will mine more thermal coal to get power flowing to the third of its 1.2 billion people still without electricity.

With the U.S.-China agreement widely viewed as a modest, symbolic measure, India might take the opportunity to step out of China's shadow during United Nations climate talks next month in Lima, Peru.

Indian officials declined to comment on the U.S.-China deal. Privately, they say Modi's new government is finalizing the position it will take to Lima in December.

Earlier this month, Modi recast the almost defunct Prime Minister's council on climate change, seeking to reinvigorate the body ahead of a pivotal year for global talks.

OUT OF CHINA'S SHADOW

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Indian delegates have long been ardent defenders of the principle of "common but differentiated responsibility" - the concept that the burden of emissions reductions and financial assistance on climate change for poor countries belongs to developed countries, who have a historical responsibility.

The concept has often hampered global climate negotiations, especially as some developing countries became emerging economies.

Jairam Ramesh, India's former environment minister and chief negotiator, believes it is time to rethink that approach.

"Differentiation is essential but is this distinction made in a completely different era over two decades back still meaningful? Simply put, it is not," he wrote in an op-ed on Thursday.

Some experts think India can now play a more prominent role as a bridge between the United States and China and developing countries.

“India will be doing a balancing act,” said Krishnan Pallassana, India director of NGO The Climate Group.

India will likely argue that its per capita emissions are around 1.9 tonnes per person - dwarfed by China with around 7.2 tonnes per person and less than half the 5 tonnes world average.

This gives Delhi plenty of room to argue that its own commitment should differ from China's as it continues to grow its economy and justify its continued use of fossil fuels.

Local environmental groups say India's new climate strategy needs to address its reliance on coal.

"Energy poverty is no longer a justification for coal expansion," said Ashish Fernandes of Greenpeace India.

U.S. officials are now turning their attention to India to ensure it helps secure a final UN climate treaty, which is to be negotiated in Lima and then sealed in Paris in 2015.

John Holdren, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, will travel to India next week to meet officials working on climate change, while former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner was in Delhi this week chairing the U.S. India Track II Dialogue on Climate Change and Energy.

Reporting by Valerie Volcovici in Washington and Tommy Wilkes in New Delhi; editing by Jonathan Leff

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The Soft Path to a Climate Agreement, From Lima to

Paris

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

DECEMBER 5, 2014 4:45 PM

The New York Times

Needless to say, there’s been a big and promising shift in tone and some substance in global warming diplomacy of late — led by the paired pledges of China and the United States to intensify efforts to curtail heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions. Other countries, including gas-rich Malaysia, have promised to act on climate.

No one should presume things will be easy in Lima, Peru, where negotiators are gathering through next week to shape a global climate agreement that could be finalized in Paris a year from now. There’s strong — and to a large extent justified — resistance to new carbon commitments in India, for example, where hundreds of millions of people lack access to any modern energy sources, let alone clean ones. And there will be intensifying demands for billions to flow from industrialized countries that spent decades building wealth burning fossil fuels to poor, vulnerable ones. Given continuing economic troubles in many developed countries, those demands will be hard to meet.

Still, there are plenty of signs that there’s room for a global accord to emerge, with every faction — from the poorest to the richest — finding a comfort zone thanks to the 24-year-old clause in the original climate treaty laying out nations’ “common but differentiated responsibilities” (here’s a great explainer from McGill’s Center for International Sustainable Development Law).

As long ago as 1991, there were calls to pursue “soft,” not internationally binding, steps toward a global climate treaty. Read these notes from a fascinating 1991 Harvard meeting on Negotiating a Global Climate Agreement to get the idea. (There are some excerpts below. I first wrote about that meeting in 2010.)

Talks are progressing now because this shift is in fact occurring.

John Upton has an informative piece on Climate Central that lays out the logic of non-binding success and also why some parties, particularly Europe, still resist:

As negotiators gather in Peru for a critical round of climate talks, U.S. delegates are straining to explain what they call a “counterintuitive” reality: For next year’s global climate agreement to be effective, commitments made under it must not be legally binding.

Such an outcome would disappoint many, including the European Union’s negotiating team, which says it will be pushing for binding commitments during the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change talks in Lima this week and next. America’s negotiators are pushing for voluntary commitments.

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The success of the next climate agreement, which is due to be finalized during talks in Paris one year from now, may hinge on American negotiators winning in this latest spat in a long-simmering quarrel with their European counterparts.

It’s a pretty good bet that Europe will — excuse the term — soften, given the momentum built by the year-long process that produced the American announcement with China and particularly because failure in the heart of Europe is unimaginable.

The new emphasis on a soft approach is quite a contrast to the tone in the run-up to the tumultuous Copenhagen talks in 2009, when inflated “seal the deal” expectations — partially driven by the election of President Obama — led to the idea there could be new international, legally-binding gas limits like those tried in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol — which has proved a dead-end document.

Yvo de Boer, who held the chair in the climate talks through Copenhagen and now runs the Global Green Growth Institute, made the point this way in an interview with Bloomberg’s The Grid back in June:

Q: Is it still realistic for climate negotiators to want an “international, legally binding” treaty? Was it ever realistic if the U.S. always opposed one?

A: If a country enters into a legally-binding commitment and they back away from it, what do you do? Arrest the prime minister? “Nationally legally-binding” is much stronger. I think we’ve moved beyond Kyoto-style agreements. Hopefully in Paris we will see countries make ambitious pledges to limit or reduce emissions.

Debates will (and should) continue over how much of what’s being pledged is simply enshrining energy and pollution trends (both in the United States and countries like China) that are already being driven by other factors (cheap shale gas and growing energy efficiency here, smog concerns in China, etc.).

And much of what is being pledged, despite Yvo de Boer’s hope for legally-binding actions at the national level, is still much more like putty than steel, as Jack Goldsmith of Harvard Law School noted (in the context of United States law) on his Lawfare blog earlier this year.

But momentum matters, as does the rising trust among parties as they split from a faction- against-faction approach (remember the Group of 77 plus China bloc?) to finding common threads, one on one.

The summary of that 1991 meeting on climate agreements, written by Henry Lee, who’s still at Harvard, have some relevant sections, including this one:

Perhaps the real problem is not agreeing on a treaty, but building nations’ confidence in other nations’ capacity and willingness to cut emissions. We are skeptical about whether Brazil will do it, and they are skeptical about us. And as

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in the recent U.S.-Japan decisions over Structural Impediments to trade, if we both can do it, we will both be better off.

Overcoming this blockage will either take an adjustment of our notion of sovereignty where implementation is concerned, or a focus on unilateral action. U.S. unilateral action could set an example for the world, and help to structure the international process so as to increase confidence. If the U.S., for example, significantly increased transportation fuel prices, then this action would both increase our influence in pushing for good international deals, and exempt us from charges of obstruction when we refuse to sign a bad one.

There is a lot of latent cooperativeness, looking for a structure in which to express itself. This is what international legal measures, soft or hard, should do — give an enabling structure to this latent willingness to help.

Obama has moved far more on power plants and auto efficiency than fuel prices (which are headed down of course), which simply shows that expectations and options evolve over time. But his administration’s domestic power plant rules and simultaneous interaction with China reflect how this dynamic can work.

There’s much more at the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, including this new paper: “A Pre-Lima Scorecard for Evaluating which Countries are Doing Their Fair Share in Pledged Carbon Cuts.”

Update, Dec. 6, 8:45 a.m. | Professor Lee at Harvard sent this illuminating note after I’d posted:

The real architects of the soft strategy were Abe Chayes [bio] and Tom Schelling [Nobelist in Economics] and it is fascinating that it has taken 23 years for the world to finally catch up. Although Chayes’s thumbprint is all over the Rio treaty of 1992. Howard Raiffa convened a bi-weekly seminar at the Business School in which both Tom and Abe participated, and it was out of these discussions that the soft strategy emerged.

While I firmly believe it to be the only workable strategy that can result in meaningful progress, skeptics ask –will this strategy be enough to make a measurable difference in slowing the build up of greenhouse gas concentrations? Given the domestic hurdles facing Obama, the inability to raise significant funds for the Green Climate Fund and China’s long farewell to its growth in carbon emissions, we may still be another decade away from seeing this issue turn around. This is not to say that the Xi-Obama agreement or a successful Paris protocol will not be significant, but the question is –will it be enough.

I replied this way (email shorthand cleaned up):

The “Will it be enough?” question leads to “What is enough?” I’ve always liked John Holdren’s notion that there’s a sliding mix of “mitigation, adaptation and

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suffering.” No hard lines going forward. And the learn-and-adjust aspect of humanity’s complex response will keep tweaking the two knobs as necessary.

It will be far from perfect, or rational. But we’ll keep moving on. The human way.

Update, Dec. 6, 11:45 a.m. | Robert Stavins, another Harvard economist focused on climate policy, sent the following observation:

You mention something that is very important to keep in mind, but frequently ignored in press and other commentary on the ongoing international climate negotiations, namely: “No hard lines going forward.”

There is not some distinct bend in the marginal damage function or marginal cost function at 450 ppm [a carbon dioxide concentration of 450 parts per million]. In other words, it’s fair to say that stabilizing at 350 ppm means less damages, and stabilizing at 550 ppm means more damages (things get more complicated when bringing in marginal costs, and searching for the most dynamically efficient path forward), but there is really not something magical about 450 ppm.

The 450 ppm target is a political goal (which is important), but is not linked in some rigorous way with the science and economics. It has also become fundamentally infeasible, as the this year’s IPCC AR5 WG3 and SYR reports have illustrated quite clearly.

Unfortunately, pointing this out has become politically incorrect and controversial.

I was also remiss in not including a link to his excellent blog post explaining the significance of the Lima meeting and why recent steps are important. Here is a snippet:

There will be — indeed, already have been — pronouncements of failure of the Lima/Paris talks from some green groups, primarily because the talks will not lead to an immediate decrease in emissions and will not prevent atmospheric temperatures from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), which has become an accepted, but essentially unachievable political goal. These well-intentioned advocates mistakenly focus on the short-term change in emissions among participating countries (for example, the much-heralded 5.2% cut by the Annex I countries in the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period), when it is the long-term change in global emissions that matters.

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India Lowers Expectations For Paris Climate Talks

Jeff McMahon

2/20/2015 @ 9:02AM

Forbes.com

The Paris Climate Conference this December will not produce an agreement that is “environmentally optimal,” according to the member of parliament who served as India’s chief negotiator at the 2009 conference in Copenhagen.

But Paris will serve as a springboard to help the world’s major economies begin to develop low- carbon economies, Minister Jairam Ramesh said last month during a side event at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“All negotiations on climate present trilemmas—not dilemmas, but trilemmas,” Ramesh said at a panel discussion sponsored by the Energy Policy Institute of Chicago. “You have to have something that is politically feasible, something that is economically desirable, and something that is environmentally optimum.

“And in Paris, what you’re going to get is an outcome that is not environmentally optimum, but that is politically and economically acceptable.”

Ramesh’s remarks (video) came on a day that President Obama was meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi, a visit that produced a memorandum of understanding on clean energy, but not a comprehensive climate agreement like the one Obama had secured with China in November.

Ramesh suggested the Paris agreement, too, may lack substance.

“The commitments that countries are making—unfortunately, even the word commitment has been diluted. It’s now contributions, as if countries are doing a favor to humanity. It’s now, in UN Speak, INDC: Intended, not even pledged, but Intended Nationally Determined Contributions.”

Ramesh predicts many countries will be making such contributions in Paris, promising to limit their carbon emissions, “but what you have to lock, in Paris, is a system that will ensure compliance with these contributions.”

So the key to the Paris Conference, according to Ramesh, is not whether countries make contributions, but whether the UN can muster support for an enforcement mechanism to ensure that countries comply with the contributions they make.

Developing countries like India may be reluctant to accept any enforcement mechanism that could have the effect of limiting economic growth. Were they asked to rank economic growth against climate objectives, Ramesh said, developing countries would choose growth.

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“It’s a no-brainer. They will rank the growth objective higher than the climate objective. That was clear at Copenhagen,” he said. “We are in a very serious situation that will make any solution to the climate problem environmentally suboptimal because the growth objective will always predominate.”

Nonetheless, Ramesh was not without optimism for Paris.

‘Paris will be a springboard. It will not be the final destination. It will be a springboard to a low- carbon economy for the major economies of the world.”

By Arthur Neslen
Monday 23 February 2015 11:32 EST

The world’s states should commit to a legally binding emissions cut of 60% by 2050, with five- yearly reviews, in a Paris Protocol to replace the moribund Kyoto agreement at a climate summit later this year, according to a leaked EU document.

But environmentalists have questioned the integrity of the headline 60% figure, and a strategy which is seen as overly-tilted towards the US.

“Major economies, in particular the EU, China and the US, should show political leadership by joining the Protocol as early as possible,” says the EU’s ‘Road to Paris 2015’ communication, which the Guardian has seen. “It should enter into force as soon as countries with a share of 80% of current global emissions have ratified it.

The EU accounts for nine percent of global emissions, compared to China’s 24%, and the 12% emitted by the US, according to the document. “Combined, these targets would cover around half of global emissions,” it says.

As soon as that number reached 80% - or 40 Gigatones of CO2 equivalent pollution - the new Paris Protocol would kick in.

Environmentalists welcomed the EU’s attempt to keep emissions cuts within the rubric of a legally binding deal, rather than seeing it relegated to a protocol annex.

But many noted that the 60% CO2 cut would be measured against 2010 levels, and was thus the same as the bloc’s previous aspiration of a 50% cut measured against 1990 levels - itself a genuflection to a 2007 IPCC report seen as outdated.

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“The communication is absolutely not in line with the two degrees target and is a missed opportunity after the latest IPCC report clearly stated that there is a cumulative carbon budget,” the Green MEP Bas Eickhout told the Guardian.

“It’s frustrating to see the European Commission insist on the need to keep global temperature increases below two degrees celsius, but gloss over the inadequacy of its own action on climate change,” added Brook Riley, a spokesman for Friends of the Earth Europe.

The five-yearly review suggestion is viewed by green NGOs as a concession to advance the EU’s ten-year emission-cutting model onto other countries. The previous Kyoto agreement had begun with a five-year commitment period, which President Obama implicitly acknowledged in his offer of CO2 reductions by 2025 earlier this year.

The EU’s gambit may receive a cool reception in Washington, where the Obama administration fears a Senate block on any legal agreement that gives the UN arbiter powers. But according to Eickhout, a focus on Obama’s difficulties could cement a perception in the developing world that the EU was acting as the gatekeeper for a rich world club.

“I find it worrying that the EU is still so trans-Atlantically obsessed when there is much more movement in China and among other developing countries which want a deal,” he said. “If we are able to build an alliance for a final deal with the African Union, progressive Latin Americans, Least Developed Countries and the low-lying islands - who are most affected by climate change – I don’t think the US will really block it.”

The EU’s communication does exempt the poorest countries from presenting their proposed emissions cuts in the first quarter of 2015 - unlike G20 nations – and stresses that public sector climate finance should “continue to play an important role after 2020.”

But only $10bn of a proposed $100bn a year climate aid fund by 2020 has so far been provided, raising fears that the global foundations of any deal could be eroded before negotiators have even arrived in Paris.

“The EU can do these communications but the big debate in Paris will be on finance where developing countries will ask for more,” Eickhout said. “We should send the finance ministers to Paris, not the environment ones. The EU is trying to downplay the issue but it wont be downplayed by our partners around the world.”