Why would countries comply if theres no punishment?
The punishment is a combination of international disdain and, in the case of arms control treaties, sanctions. If you fail to meet a treaty that you entered, your national interest has been harmed. That’s why treaties have worked in spite of their usual lack of any prescribed penalties. In my opinion, Kyoto focused too much on numerical targets and too little on the mechanisms by which those targets would be achieved. Targets in the absence of mechanisms are likely to be missed. Some of the flaws in Kyoto could have been remedied on the fly if countries had agreed on a penalty that would remedy the shortfall in the next round. For instance, if the punishment for missing the targets had been to increase national investment in low-emission technologies in proportion to the amount by which the target was missed. A number of important developing countries, such as China, India and Brazil, have already come out against targets on greenhouse gas emissions, even though they are likely to suff
