A new book published by the AEI Press argues that the United States should engage China and other developing countries in a new agreement that makes full use of market-based incentives such as international emissions trading, ensures comprehensive coverage of greenhouse gases, and sets gradual emissions limitations pathways that maximize net benefits.

In the introduction of Reconstructing Climate Policy, authors Richard B. Stewart and Jonathan B. Wiener contend that "without the participation of the United States and major emitting developing countries, which together account for over half of global greenhouse gas emissions, the Kyoto Protocol (or any other international effort to address the risks of climate change by curbing greenhouse gas emissions) is doomed to fail."

At an April 29 AEI-Brookings Joint Center event, Wiener, a professor at Duke University with experience making climate policy in the administrations of George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, proposed that the United States neither do nothing nor join Kyoto, but instead follow a third course. By following the path advocated in the book, the United States would, as Wiener said, "engage China and other major developing countries and potentially other industrialized countries who have not joined the Kyoto Protocol, such as Australia, in a parallel regime to the Kyoto Protocol. This regime would involve, first, full use of the flexibility mechanisms, that is international emissions trading, banking, and borrowing with appropriate interest rates and a comprehensive approach to all relevant greenhouse gases and sinks as well as sources. Second, our proposal would involve participation in this regime by major developing countries, China, India, Brazil, and others."

At the same event, Stewart described President George W. Bush's rejection of Kyoto as an opportunity, "I think the notion of bilateral or [multi]lateral arrangements initiated by the U.S. can provide a testing ground for engagement of developing countries, for the development of the monitoring and compliance assurances that are necessary and of smaller coalitions of the willing who are interested in exploring these opportunities that are open to us."