From left: Robert Stowe, Manager of the Harvard Project, Robert Stavins, Director of the Harvard Project, Ottmar Edenhofer, Director of MCC.
MCC/David Ausserhofer Photo
Harvard Project Co-hosts Workshop on Options for a New International Climate Regime
The Harvard Project and the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) convened thirty leading international researchers and policymakers on May 23 and 24, 2013 at MCC in Berlin.
For more information, click here>
FEATURED PUBLICATIONS
May 2013
"A Voting Architecture for the Governance of Free-Driver Externalities, with Application to Geoengineering"
Climate change is a global "free rider" problem because significant abatement of greenhouse gases is an expensive public good requiring international cooperation to apportion compliance among states. But it is also a global "free driver" problem because geoengineering the stratosphere with reflective particles to block incoming solar radiation is so cheap that it could essentially be undertaken unilaterally by one state perceiving itself to be in peril.
April 2013
"The Role of Forests in a Future Climate Agreement"
By Donna Lee
Forests can play a significant role in helping to avoid dangerous climate change, and a global agreement under the UNFCCC would be uniquely placed to support efforts in this regard. The rising global demand for agricultural and other land-based products means that pressures on land are increasingly cross-border, and there is an accelerating expansion of the deforestation frontier. Smart domestic policies are critical to solving the deforestation challenge, and recent private sector interest in "sustainable agriculture" is encouraging. However, global agreements that value standing forests and provide incentives that positively impact land use change decisions can be an equally important tool.
February 2013
"A Climate Diplomacy Proposal: Carbon Pricing Consultations"
By Adele Morris, Warwick McKibbin and Peter Wilcoxen
The United States has considerable tax administration and cap-and-trade expertise that could highlight potentially successful carbon pricing approaches. Although this experience is not climate-related, the United States deploys an efficient and highly compliant excise tax system, and it could assist developing country efforts to build their own capacity to tax carbon. The United States also has long experience with cap-and-trade systems for criteria air pollutants, much of which is transferable to greenhouse-gas emissions trading.
January 2013
Economics of Climate Change and Environmental Policy: Selected Papers of Robert N. Stavins, 20002011
By Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
Professor Robert Stavins, Harvard Project Director, recently published the second volume of his collected papers with Edward Elgar Publishing. The 26 essays in the volume cover a wide range of topics, including: environmental policy analysis; economic analysis of environmental policy instruments; economics and technical change; natural resource economics land and water; and domestic and international climate change policy. The first volume of Professor Stavins' papers was published in 2000 also by Edward Elgar covering the period 19881999.
March 7, 2013
"The Sordid History of Congressional Acceptance and Rejection of Cap-and-Trade: Implications for Climate Policy"
Vox
By Richard Schmalensee and Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
Not so long ago, cap-and-trade mechanisms for environmental protection were popular in Congress. Now, such mechanisms are denigrated. What happened? This column tells the sordid tale of how conservatives in Congress who once supported cap and trade now lambast climate change legislation as 'cap-and-tax'. Ironically, conservatives are choosing to demonise their own market-based creation. The successful conservative campaign that disparaged cap-and-trade means it may now be politically impossible to promote it in the US. The good news? Elsewhere, cap and trade is now a proven, viable option for tackling large-scale environmental problems.
March 1, 2013
"Is Obama's Climate Change Policy Doomed to Fail? Maybe Not"
PBS NEWSHOUR
By Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
"...[T]here will be actions having significant implications for U.S. CO2 emissions. The big difference is that most will not be called 'climate policy' and virtually all will be within the regulatory and executive-order domain, not new legislation. Will this set of actions and developments put the U.S. on a path to the long-term Waxman-Markey target of an 83 percent reduction below 2005 by 2050? Of course not. For that, a meaningful legislated, economy-wide, national carbon pricing regime will be necessary."
