Climate Change and Its Socioeconomic Importance

Abstract

Climate change has played an increasingly key role in recent years and is now one of the leading political priorities worldwide. This article illustrates the scope of the problem, its causes and its impacts, along with the possible solutions that are being considered on the international stage. The existing information regarding these topics is summarised, together with the associated costs and the scale of the effort required to tackle climate change. The article explains why climate change can be seen as a market failure, the importance of public policies to correct this problem and its impact on international trade. The last section considers the international debate taking place in the United Nations Conferences and the Kyoto Protocol as well as what is expected with respect to the future post-Kyoto negotiations.