ABOUT
The Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements
Goal of the project:
The goal of the project is to help identify key design elements of a scientifically sound, economically rational, and politically pragmatic post-2012 international policy architecture for global climate change. We will draw upon leading thinkers from academia, private industry, government, and non-governmental organizations to construct a small set of promising policy frameworks, and then disseminate and discuss the design elements and frameworks with decision makers in the United States, Europe, and around the world.
Introduction:
The Kyoto Protocol, the current international climate change agreement, marked the first attempt to curb the greenhouse gas emissions that are changing the Earth’s climate. This agreement, though a significant first step, has flaws. The United States, one of the world’s two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, has not ratified the agreement and China, currently building an average of one coal-fired power plant per week and the other largest emitter, was not required to reduce its emissions. Some observers support the policy approach embodied in Kyoto and would like to see it extended—perhaps with modifications—beyond the first commitment period, which ends in 2012. Others maintain that a fundamentally new approach is required.
In May 2006, the Harvard Environmental Economics Program hosted a workshop in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which brought together 27 leading thinkers from around the world from economics, law, political science, business, international relations, and the natural sciences. Together, they developed and refined six policy frameworks, each of which could form the backbone of a new international climate agreement. These range from a stronger version of the Kyoto Protocol to entirely new approaches. The six plans are the subject of a new book, Architectures for Agreement: Addressing Global Climate Change in the Post-Kyoto World, which Cambridge University Press published in September 2007. With the six climate proposals as the starting point, the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements aims to help forge a broad-based consensus on a potential successor to Kyoto.
The project consists of three stages:
(1) Discuss among key domestic and international policy constituencies the proposition that the nations of the world ought to explore options for a successor to Kyoto.
(2) Conduct economic modeling and policy analysis to develop a small set of promising policy frameworks and key design elements.
(3) Explore the key design principles and alternative international policy architectures with domestic and international audiences, including the new administration and the new Congress, in the spring of 2009.
For more information, please see our two-page overview.
