Harvard Project on Climate Agreements

In order to fully appreciate the global climate-change challenge that the Biden administration will face, Robert Stavins reflects on the history of international negotiations that brought us to this point.

Critics called last month's UN Climate Summit a disaster, but environmental economist and Harvard Kennedy School Professor Robert Stavins says global climate negotiators actually laid the groundwork for meaningful results in the future.

As negotiators from around the world arrived in Madrid for the second week of the 25th UN Climate Change Conference (COP-25), the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements hosted an official COP side event on Dec. 9 focusing on the potential for reducing greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions through the use of carbon pricing.

How do the two major approaches to carbon pricing compare on relevant dimensions, including efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and distributional equity? This paper addresses this question by drawing on theories of policy instrument choice pertaining to the attributes — or merits — of the instruments.

The Harvard Project on Climate Agreements will conduct two panel events at the Twenty-Fifth Conference of the Parties (COP-25) of the UNFCCC in Madrid, Spain during the week of December 9, 2019. In addition, Professor Robert Stavins, Director of the Harvard Project, and Professor Joseph Aldy will speak at several events hosted by other organizations.

Fifteen Minutes sat down with Professor Robert N. Stavins, Director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program, to talk about cap-and-trade, the Peace Corps, and what individuals can do to combat climate change.

Improvements in eco-efficiency—defined as a combination of reducing waste and reducing the use of raw inputs—offer one strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions while also lowering production costs. In addition, changes in culture—at the level of individual businesses, countries, or both—can enhance the eco-competitive position of these businesses and countries. This paper describes three examples from Costa Rica and shows how the goal of achieving carbon neutrality can provide incentives for improving eco-efficiency and eco-competitiveness.