PUBLIC POLICY PROBLEMS

Public policy problems

Public policy problems

Introduction

Public policies are the governmental actions or principles which guide for the action taken by the administrative and executive branches of the state which are involved in resolving the issues and masking them consistent with the institutional customs and law. These policies also include the interpretations and judicial regulations which are authorized by the legislation. The scholars also define these policies as a system of laws, regulatory measures, funding priorities as disseminated by the government entity. Thus we define public policies which are bestowed in the legislative acts, judicial decisions and constitutions. The public policies represent the analysis and decisions of the government.

Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol is a set of rules establishing emissions reduction as a part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC). The UNFCCC is an international treaty designed to organize, standardize, and fund global efforts to minimize the harm of climate change, especially through the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The treaty was developed at the 1992 Earth Summit and now has nearly 200 countries as signatories. However, the treaty itself, though legally binding and in force, did not stipulate specific requirements for its signatories to hasten negotiations over the framework of the treaty and allow room for the summit's other business. Instead, such specifics are left to the protocols that are negotiated and adopted at subsequent COPs (Conferences of Parties),  which meet annually (Bennett, 1995, p. 234). These protocols are also legally binding and are in force for a specific length of time—however, to be bound by such a protocol, a country must sign it as well as the UNFCCC. The Kyoto Protocol has eclipsed the UNFCCC in popularity in large part because the United States is a signatory to the UNFCCC but has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, thus making it a member of the Convention that is not legally bound by its current requirements. The fact that the United States has not withdrawn from the UNFCCC entirely, however, indicates that the administrations that rejected Kyoto—Clinton and Bush—may have expected that the country would be willing to ratify the protocol at some point in the future, or that a protocol succeeding Kyoto would be more amenable. In any event, the United States' noncompliance has drawn significant international criticism, but at the same time its withdrawing from the negotiations (attending COPs in an observing capacity) has made those negotiations proceed much more cleanly and efficiently, as U.S./European Union conflicts were the most prominent obstacles to consensus.

Determining Effectiveness of public policies

The Kyoto Protocol's effectiveness depends on two critical factors: whether parties comply with their commitments, and whether the emissions data used to assess compliance are reliable. Recognizing this, expert review teams check annual inventories to make sure they are complete and accurate and conform to the guidelines. The annual inventory review is generally conducted as a desk or centralized review. However, each Annex I Party is subject to at least one in-country visit during the commitment ...