In this Apr. 2007 file photo, a shovel prepares to dump coal into a truck at the Black Thunder Mine in Wright, Wyo. U.S. coal exports have been increasing as strong overseas demand offers an outlet for a fuel falling from favor at home.
AP Photo
New Policy Idea:
Buy Coal! A Case for
Supply-Side Environmental Policy
In a new study, Kellogg School of Management's Bard Harstad argues that the best policy to curb climate change is to purchase—and hold without using—extraction rights to fossil fuel deposits, as opposed to attempting to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions directly.
FEATURED PUBLICATIONS
March 2012
"Incentives and Stability of International Climate Coalitions: An Integrated Assessment"
By Valentina Bosetti, Carlo Carraro, Enrica De Cian, Emanuele Massetti and Massimo Tavoni
"A successful international climate policy framework will have to meet two conditions, build a coalition of countries that is potentially effective and give each member country sufficient incentives to join and remain in this coalition. Such coalition should be capable of delivering ambitious emission reduction even if some countries do not take mitigation action. In addition, it should meet the target without exceedingly high mitigation costs and deliver a net benefit to member countries as a whole. The novel contribution of this paper is mostly methodological, but it also adds a better qualification of well-known results that are policy relevant."
March 2012
"A Good Opening: The Key to Make the Most of Unilateral Climate Action"
By Valentina Bosetti and Enrica De Cian
In a new Harvard Project Discussion Paper, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei's Valentina Bosetti and Enrica De Cian model the behavior of countries not participating in a cooperative climate regime. The regime imposes counterbalancing influences upon these countries, but under some conditions they may act to both reduce emissions and increase clean-energy R&D
AP Photo
January 2012
The SO2 Allowance Trading System and the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990: Reflections on Twenty Years of Policy Innovation
By Gabriel Chan, Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, Robert C. Stowe, Executive Director, Harvard Environmental Economics Program; Manager, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements and Richard Sweeney
The introduction of the U.S. SO2 allowance-trading program to address the threat of acid rain as part of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 is a landmark event in the history of environmental regulation. The program was a great success by almost all measures. Ironically, cap and trade seems especially well suited to addressing the problem of climate change, in that emitted greenhouse gases are evenly distributed throughout the world's atmosphere. Recent hostility toward cap and trade in debates about U.S. climate legislation may reflect the broader political environment of the climate debate more than the substantive merits of market-based regulation.
LI Zhenjun Photo
February 16, 2012
"Harvard Project on Climate Agreements Hosts Chinese Climate Change Study Tour"
By Robert C. Stowe, Executive Director, Harvard Environmental Economics Program; Manager, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
The Harvard Project on Climate Agreements hosted, on January 10, 2012, a study tour of Chinese officials working in climate and energy policy. The tour was organized by the World Resources Institute's China office. The study tour and several members of the Harvard faculty discussed options and prospects for international policy to address global climate change.
December 5, 2011
"A Wave of the Future: International Linkage of Carbon Markets"
Outreach
By Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
"...[I]t remains true that cap-and-trade is still the most likely domestic policy approach for CO2 emissions reductions throughout the industrialised world, given the rather unattractive set of available alternative approaches. This makes it important to think about the possibility of linking these national and regional cap-and-trade systems in the future. Such linking occurs when the government that maintains one system allows regulated entities to use allowances or credits from other systems to meet compliance obligations."
November 29, 2011
"Climate Change: Efficiency and Equity"
By Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
Harvard Project on Climate Agreements Director Robert N. Stavins delivered a presentation titled "Climate Change: Efficiency and Equity," at The Graduate Institute in Geneva, Switzerland, on November 29, 2011. The talk was one in the Geneva Environmental Dialogue Series of public keynote lectures that the Institute holds annually on a theme related to the international environment. The theme for the 2011–2012 term is "Justice and the Environment."
November 2011
"Governing Climate Engineering: Scenarios for Analysis"
Geoengineering grows in salience, the more time that passes without an effective international regime for mitigating climate change. It will be in the background of negotiations at COP 17 in Durban—and, perhaps, in the foreground of some important discussions. This discussion paper by Daniel Bodansky explores the opportunities and risks presented by geoengineering, as well as the particular challenges to crafting an effective system of governance for this set of approaches to addressing climate change
