ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS
Winter 2008-09
"Clark Joins Call for Congress to Adopt System to Evaluate U.S. Ecosystems"
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
William Clark, Harvey Brooks Professor of International Science, Public Policy and Human Development and member of the Belfer Center Board of Directors, joined the nonprofit Heinz Center this summer in calling on the next president and Congress to take up the reins of a system of U.S. environmental indicators that evaluates the condition of major ecosystems within the United States.
Belfer Center
Winter 2008-09
"Report Urges Governments to Explore Benefits, Risks of Biolfuels"
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
Governments should initiate an orderly, innovation-enhancing transition toward incentives that target multi-dimensional goals for biofuels development, according to the report "Biofuels and Sustainable Development," released by the Sustainability Science Program of Harvard Kennedy School in ollaboration with Italy’s Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea, and Venice International University. Henry Lee, director of the Belfer Center's Environment and Natural Resources Program and co-author of the report with William Clark and Charan Devereaux, writes that if the potential of biofuels is to be realized, "governments must be clear about goals and constraints and the specific interventions to address each of them.”
Nicole Davis
Winter 2008-09
"Reflections and Actions on Improving China's Air Quality"
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
By Hongyan He Oliver, Former Research Fellow, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group, 2004-2009
While the world congratulated Beijing for its dazzling Olympic stadiums and the splendid opening ceremony, the Belfer Center's Hongyan Oliver argues that it should have also given the city another round of applause for its decade-long efforts to clean up its air. While some of these improvements were temporary, she notes, "its Olympic effort showed the world and China that it is capable of making great changes."
Harvard New Office - Kris Snibbe
October 23, 2008
Gore: Universities Must Take the Lead in Addressing the Climate Crisis
News
By Beth Maclin, Communications Assistant
Former Vice President Al Gore charged universities with the task of bringing the truth of the climate crisis into the global consciousness yesterday at Harvard’s Sustainability Celebration.
October 2008
"An Elaborated Proposal for Global Climate Policy Architecture: Specific Formulas and Emission Targets for All Countries in All Decades"
Discussion Paper
By Jeffrey Frankel, James W. Harpel Professor of Capital Formation and Growth
This paper offers a detailed plan to set quantitative national limits on emissions of greenhouse gases, building on the foundation of the Kyoto Protocol. It attempts to fill in the most serious gaps: the absence of targets extending as far as 2100, the absence of participation by the United States and developing countries, and the absence of reason to think that countries will abide by commitments. The plan elaborates on the idea of a framework of formulas that can assign quantitative limits across countries, one budget period at a time. Unlike other proposals for century-long paths of emission targets that are based purely on science (concentration goals) or economics (cost-benefit optimization), this plan is based partly on politics.
June 3, 2008
Post-2012 International Policy Architecture for Global Climate Change International Workshop
Agenda
The International Workshop on "Post-2012 International Policy Architecture for Global Climate Change" was organized by the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements, the International Centre on Climate Governance (a joint initiative of the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei and the Fondazione Giorgio Cini) and the Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Climate Change.
The workshop was held in Venice on May 14–16, 2008, and took place in the magnificent setting of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, a celebrated monastery located on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore facing Saint Mark's Square. Participation in the workshop was by invitation only.
The workshop was structured as follows. On May 15th, a one-day academic workshop presented preliminary results of work in progress from the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements. This will be useful to obtain feedback from colleagues on research-in-progress and exchange ideas about international climate change policy.
On May 16th, a stakeholders meeting provided leaders from business, environmental advocacy, and government an opportunity to engage in a discussion about international climate change policy with one another and with academic experts. The main results of the academic workshop were presented at the beginning of the stakeholder workshop on May 16th.
May 2008
Climate Change: Expert Opinion on the Economics of Policy Options to Address Climate Change
Report
By U.S. Government Accountability Office, Joseph Aldy, Former Co-Director, Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements and Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements
"...GAO was asked to elicit the opinions of experts on (1) actions the Congress might consider to address climate change and what is known about the potential benefits, costs, and uncertainties of these actions and (2) the key strengths and limitations of policies or actions to address climate change. GAO worked with the National Academy of Sciences to identify a panel of noted economists with expertise in analyzing the economic impacts of climate change policies and gathered their opinions through iterative, Web-based questionnaires. The findings reported here represent the views of the 18 economists who responded to both questionnaires."
Two of the 18 economists who participated were Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements Co-Directors Joseph Aldy and Robert Stavins. In addition, two other participating economists, James Edmonds of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and William Pizer of Resources for the Future, are members of Harvard Project research teams.
May 7, 2008
"Economic Incentives in a New Climate Agreement"
Paper
By Joseph Aldy, Former Co-Director, Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements and Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements
The Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements has agreed to help the Office of the Danish Prime Minister, in its role as incoming President of the 2009 Conference of the Parties, to prepare background papers and on-site briefings for a series of very high-level dialogues on climate change policy, hosted by the Prime Minister. These dialogues will each include about 25 participants, including CEOs of European and U.S. corporations, key officials from national governments and intergovernmental organizations, and leaders of major environmental NGOs. This paper on the subject of economic incentives was prepared by the Harvard Project leadership for the first dialogue.
May / June 2008
"Climate Policy Architectures for the Post-Kyoto World"
Journal Article, Environment, issue 3, volume 50
By Joseph Aldy, Former Co-Director, Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements and Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements
"The global climate has changed and will continue to change as a result of greenhouse gas emissions from a broad variety of human activities. In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change determined that 'most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.' If greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow unabated, the global average temperature will likely increase between 1.1°C and 6.4°C. This warming will unleash a myriad of impacts, the vast majority of which will adversely affect water availability, agricultural and forestry productivity, the spread of infectious diseases, extreme weather events, unique ecosystems and rare species, and the built environment in coastal areas. The risks of global climate change clearly necessitate an international effort."
April 14, 2008
"Addressing Global Climate Change with a Comprehensive U.S. Cap-and-Trade System"
Discussion Paper
By Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements
There is a growing impetus for a domestic U.S. climate policy that can provide meaningful reductions in emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. The paper describes and analyzes an up-stream, economy-wide CO2 cap-and-trade system which implements a gradual trajectory of emissions reductions (with inclusion over time of non-CO2 greenhouse gases), and includes mechanisms to reduce cost uncertainty.
