Global climate policies - the problem of (missing) commitment

Beschreibung: Climate policy negotiations between countries suffer from weak enforcement as there are no sanctions in case of insufficient policies and non-accomplishment of national goals. Improvements of climate policy negotiations are possible by making use of insights from game theory. Higher cooperation level could be achieved by reciprocity mechanisms which lead to credible commitment. We argue that it might be unwise to unilaterally commit to strict climate policies, and to use trade agreements as a strong vehicle to reinforce climate policies in other countries.