Analysing the Effectiveness of International Environmental Policies: The Case of the Kyoto Protocol

We study the effectiveness of emission targets under the Kyoto Protocol with respect to reducing CO₂ emissions. Using country-level and US state-level panel data and employing the synthetic control method, we do not find a significant effect for any of the major emitters among the Annex B countries with binding emission targets. We also show that – in general – evaluating the effectiveness of international environmental policies at the country level comes with a number of empirical challenges that may invalidate findings based on more traditional panel data approaches.