In addition, the emerging role of voluntary commitments on the environment is examined. Best practices in this area are highlighted. The papers were presented at the OECD Conference on Foreign Direct Investment and the Environment held in January 1999 in The Hague. In 1997, a number of countries, including most OECD countries, agreed the Kyoto Protocol, which sets targets for future emissions of greenhouse gases that drive climate change. But the Kyoto Protocol left many decisions to be made, and while these are being discussed the clock ticks and the date for meeting the targets draws closer.
Uncertainties are even larger as to policy requirements over the longer term.
The Kyoto targets in themselves will do little to avert climate change but are best seen as a first step towards ambitious world-wide action. This puts the focus on how to achieve world-wide consensus for taking action and the economic impacts such action may have. Whatever action is taken, and on the basis of available scientific evidence, some climate change may take place in any case, raising questions about its impacts and how best to adjust. This publication presents analysis which bears on the above questions as well as others in the climate change debate. It does not purport to have the final answers, but is aimed to inform a major debate.