LIBRARY OF THE HARVARD PROJECT ON CLIMATE AGREEMENTS: DURBAN BRANCH
The Seventeenth Conference of the Parties (COP 17) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was held in Durban, South Africa, November 28–December 9, 2012. The Harvard Project has selected research and insights from its library relevant to the deliberations of the parties.
Harvard Project Director Robert Stavins offers his analysis of COP 17 in An Economic View of the Environment blog post. Read "Assessing the Climate Talks—Did Durban Succeed?" here: http://www.robertstavinsblog.org/2011/12/12/assessing-the-climate-talks-did-durban-succeed/
Stavins focuses on the third outcome of the talks—the "Durban Platform for Enhanced Action"—in another blog post. Read "The Platform Opens a Window: An Unambiguous Consequence of the Durban Climate Talks" here: http://www.robertstavinsblog.org/2012/01/01/the-platform-opens-a-window-an-unambiguous-consequence-of-the-durban-climate-talks/
Stavins further elaborates on the Durban Platform in "If the Durban Platform Opened a Window, Will India and China Close It?" here: http://www.robertstavinsblog.org/2012/03/16/if-the-durban-platform-opened-a-window-will-india-and-china-close-it/
September 2012
"Climate Negotiations Open a Window: Key Implications of the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action"
By Joseph E. Aldy, Faculty Affiliate, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements and Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
The Durban Platform for Enhanced Action represents an important milestone in the history of climate negotiations. The challenge is to find a way to include all key countries in a structure that brings about meaningful emission reduction on an appropriate timetable at acceptable cost, while recognizing the different circumstances of countries in a way that is more subtle, more sophisticated, and more effective than the dichotomous distinction of years past. This policy brief expands upon the authors' Science article, "Climate Negotiators Create an Opportunity for Scholars."
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August 31, 2012
"Climate Negotiators Create an Opportunity for Scholars"
Science, issue 6098, volume 337
By Joseph E. Aldy, Faculty Affiliate, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements and Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) launched a process to confront risks posed by global climate change. It has led to a dichotomy between countries with serious emission-reduction responsibilities and others with no responsibilities whatsoever. This has prevented progress, but the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action suggests the prospect for a better way forward and an openness to outside-the-box thinking. Scholars and practitioners have a new opportunity to contribute innovative proposals for a future international climate policy architecture.
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July 2012
"The Durban Platform Negotiations: Goals and Options"
In December 2011, parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, which launched a new round of negotiations aimed at developing "a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force" for the post-2020 period. The Durban Platform negotiations got underway this year and are scheduled to conclude in 2015. This Viewpoint analyzes the elements of the Durban Platform and the possible role that a new instrument might play.
May 2012
"Post-Durban Climate Policy Architecture Based on Linkage of Cap-and-Trade Systems"
By Matthew Ranson and Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
The outcome of the December 2011 United Nations climate negotiations in Durban, South Africa, provides an important new opportunity to move toward an international climate policy architecture that is capable of delivering broad international participation and significant global CO2 emissions reductions at reasonable cost. We evaluate one important component of potential climate policy architecture for the post-Durban era: links among independent tradable permit systems for greenhouse gases.
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November 2011
"The National Context of U.S. State Policies for a Global Commons Problem"
By Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
In this policy brief, Harvard Project Director Robert Stavins focuses on how subnational policies will interact with a federal climate policy. It turns out that some of the interactions will be problematic, others will be benign, and still others could be positive. He also examines the role that could be played by subnational policies in the absence of a meaningful federal policy, with the conclusion that—like it or not—we may find that Sacramento, California comes to take the place of Washington as the center of national climate policy. This case study might provide insight for COP 17 delegates in designing the next steps toward a flexible international agreement.
October 2011
"The Promise and Problems of Pricing Carbon: Theory and Experience"
By Joseph E. Aldy, Faculty Affiliate, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements and Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
Market-approaches to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases lie at the heart of any cost-effective set of policies put forward in an international agreement—and will be considered at COP 17 in Durban in both the Kyoto and Long-term Cooperative Action discussions. Joseph Aldy and Robert Stavins "examine the opportunities and challenges associated with the major options for carbon pricing: carbon taxes, cap‐and‐trade, emission reduction credits, clean energy standards, and fossil fuel subsidy reductions."
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
September 2011
"Sustainable Cooperation in Global Climate Policy: Specific Formulas and Emission Targets to Build on Copenhagen and Cancun"
By Valentina Bosetti and Jeffrey Frankel, James W. Harpel Professor of Capital Formation and Growth
In pursuit of a workable successor to the Kyoto Protocol, this study offers a framework of formulas that produces precise numerical targets for emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases, in all regions of the world in all decades of this century....Firms, consumers, and researchers base their current decisions to invest in plant and equipment, consumer durables, or new technological possibilities on the expected future price of carbon: If government commitments are not credible from the start, then they will not raise the expected future carbon price.
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August 2011
"Whither the Kyoto Protocol? Durban and Beyond"
The Kyoto Protocol establishes a very complex and ambitious regime, in architecture if not stringency. The problem is that relatively few states, representing only about a quarter of the world's emissions, have been willing to assume emission targets under Kyoto....The future of the Protocol thus seems doubtful at best. Even in the most optimistic scenario, a new round of emissions targets couldn't be agreed in time to prevent a legal gap between the first and second commitment periods. A possible middle ground would be to establish a transitional regime that would be political in nature, but that could evolve over time into a legally-binding regime.
September 16, 2011
"Beyond Kyoto: An Economic Perspective on International Climate Policy"
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 featured address at the Institute of International and European Affairs, Ireland's leading think tank on international affairs, on September 16, 2011, in Dublin. As preparations for the next round of crucial climate negotiations in Durban, South Africa, commence, Stavins discussed the prospects for the negotiations; the future of climate action beyond the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012; and the economics of climate change policy.
