January 2010

"The Regime Complex for Climate Change"

By Robert O. Keohane and David G. Victor

There is no integrated, comprehensive regime governing efforts to limit the extent of climate change. Instead, there is a regime complex: a loosely coupled set of specific regimes. We describe the regime complex for climate change and seek to explain it, using functional, strategic, and organizational arguments. It is likely that such a regime complex will persist: efforts to build an effective, legitimate, and adaptable comprehensive regime are unlikely to succeed. Building on this analysis, we argue that a climate change regime complex, if it meets specified criteria, has advantages over any politically feasible comprehensive regime, particularly with respect to adaptability and flexibility. These characteristics are particularly important in an environment of high uncertainty, such as in the case of climate change where the most demanding international commitments are interdependent yet governments vary widely in their interest and ability to implement such commitments.

AP Photo

December 18, 2009

"Achieving Comparable Effort through Carbon Price Agreements"

By Warwick McKibbin, Adele Morris and Peter Wilcoxen

Parties could break the stalemate around hard targets and ensure the comparability of efforts by supplementing commitments on emissions with commitments for price signals on carbon. Under our proposal, all major parties would need to show at least a minimum level of effort regardless of whether they achieve their emissions target, and they would be allowed to exceed their target if they were unable to achieve it in spite of undertaking a high level of effort.

Photo by Jason Chapman

January 13, 2010

Harvard Project Hosts High-Level Climate Policy Roundtable in Copenhagen

By Sasha Talcott, Director of Communications and Outreach

The Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements hosted a high-level roundtable at the Copenhagen Conference of the Parties (COP 15) in December, attended by key leaders in government, business, and environmental advocacy groups. The meeting gave negotiators and stakeholders an opportunity to explore the future direction of climate change policy and included a briefing on recent Harvard Project research.

Photo by Zinnia Mukherjee

January 8, 2010

Harvard Project Director Robert Stavins is Inducted as a Fellow of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists

By Beth Maclin, Communications Assistant and Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements

Harvard Kennedy School's Professor Robert Stavins, director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program and a member of the Belfer Center's board of directors, was inducted as a Fellow of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE) on January 4, 2010.

AP Photo

December 6, 2009

"A Silver Lining in the Climate Talks Cloud"

Boston Globe

By Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements

"...[W]hat would constitute real progress? One important step forward would be a constructive joint-communiqué from major countries (just 17 industrialized and emerging economies account for about 90 percent of annual emissions). Such a joint-communiqué could lay out key progressive principles to underlie a future climate agreement, such as making the notion of common but differentiated responsibilities meaningful through the dual principles that: all countries recognize their historic emissions (read, the industrialized world); and all countries are responsible for their future emissions (think of those emerging economies)."

AP Photo

December 3, 2009

"Trade Could Hold the Key to a Climate Deal"

Financial Times

By Bard Harstad

"Implementing such a linkage is possible. The Montreal Protocol, successfully protecting the ozone layer, is already restricting trade with non-participants and non-compliers, although only in the substances controlled by the treaty. To repeat this success and overcome the obstacles for a climate agreement, signatories should become favoured trading partners while non-compliance should trigger a temporary denial of this status. Disputes can be solved by expanding the mandate of the WTO's dispute settlement body or another mediator."

AP Photo

December 2, 2009

"Climate Finance: Key Concepts and Ways Forward"

By Richard B. Stewart, Benedict Kingsbury and Bryce Rudyk

Climate finance is fundamental to curbing anthropogenic climate change. Compared, however, to the negotiations over emissions reduction timetables, commitments, and architectures, climate finance issues have received only limited and belated attention. Assuring delivery and appropriate use of the financial resources needed to achieve emissions reductions and secure adaptation to climate change, particularly in developing countries, is as vital as agreement on emission caps. Yet, a comprehensive framework on financing for mitigation and adaptation is not in sight. Developed and developing countries cannot agree on even the fundamentals of what should be included (e.g. should private finance through carbon markets be included?), let alone the level and terms of financing commitments, regulatory and other mechanisms, or governance structures.