13.1 Introduction

Article 4 of the United Nations Framework Convention on climate change (UNFCCC) commits all Parties – taking into account their common but differentiated responsibilities and their specific national and regional priorities, objectives and circumstances – to formulate, implement, publish and regularly update national and, where appropriate, regional programmes containing measures that will result in the mitigation of climate change by addressing anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) by sources and removals by sinks. The main purpose of this chapter is to discuss national policy instruments and their implementation, international agreements and other arrangements and initiatives of the private sector, local governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This chapter expands on the literature that has emerged since the Third Assessment Report (TAR) – in particular, on aspects covered in Chapters 6 and l0 of the TAR. There is a relatively heavier focus given to publications proposing new approaches to possible future international agreements, alternative options for international cooperation and initiatives of local governments and the private sector. Wherever feasible, these agreements and arrangements are discussed in the context of criteria such as environmental effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, distributional considerations, institutional feasibility, among others. This chapter does not discuss in detail either sectoral policies, which can be found in other chapters of this report, or adaptation policies, as those may be found in IPCC (2007b).