A World Price for Carbon: A Necessary Condition for an Effective Global Climate Agreement

In the following text the author will demonstrate three things. First, that humankind is losing the battle against human-induced climate change, the impacts of which are being particularly felt in the Arctic. Second, that the current negotiations are very unlikely to result in the international climate agreement they need to redress the situation. Third, that the way to redirect these negotiations in the right direction would be to introduce into these international discussions the negotiation of a global, harmonized price for the leading greenhouse gas: carbon dioxide (CO2). Despite the efforts made to limit CO2 emissions, they are growing at an increasingly rapid pace. Annual greenhouse gas emissions grew on average by 2.2% per year from 2000 to 2010, compared to 1.3% per year from to 1970 to 2000. In 2014, total annual CO2 emissions rose to 65% over its 1990 level, the year international negotiations on the reduction of anthropogenic climate change began.