CLIMATE CHANGE
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September/October 2008
"A Nuclear Revival Needs New Cooperation"
Op-Ed, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, issue 4, volume 64
By Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom and Martin B. Malin, Executive Director, Project on Managing the Atom
In an Op-Ed in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Matthew Bunn and Martin B. Malin argue that a reinvigorated IAEA and new approaches to cooperation on nuclear safety, security, and nonproliferation are required for nuclear energy to make a significant contribution to mitigating climate change without creating undue risks.
September 2008
"Industrialized-Country Mitigation Policy and Resource Transfers to Developing Countries: Improving and Expanding Greenhouse Gas Offsets"
Discussion Paper
By Andrew G. Keeler and Alexander Thompson
"The role of developing country commitments and actions to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions is central to worldwide progress in reducing the risks of anthropogenic climate change. Industrialized-country governments and publics are increasingly concerned that their emissions reduction commitments are unrequited by action in some of the world's largest emitters, especially India and China. Developing countries respond by pointing to the historical responsibility of the global North and stressing their desire to avoid measures that could undermine economic development. This paper offers a proposal for partially resolving this impasse by enhancing existing mechanisms for greenhouse gas offsets, which allow rich countries to finance developing country actions and thereby transfer resources to poorer ones...."
September 2008
"Justice and Climate Change"
Discussion Paper
By Eric A. Posner and Cass R. Sunstein
"Climate change raises complex issues of science, economics, and politics; it also raises difficult issues of justice. Poor nations are especially vulnerable to rising temperatures, in part because they are poor. Wealthy nations have less at risk, in part because they are wealthy. It is both tempting and plausible to suggest that for either emissions reductions or adaptation, wealthy nations owe special obligations to poor ones. In this paper, we address this general question by focusing on a much narrower one: how should permits be allocated in a global cap-and-trade system?"
September 12, 2008
Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements: Winner of Research Paper Competition
Announcement
We are pleased to announce that Larry Karp (University of California, Berkeley) and Jinhua Zhao (Michigan State University) have been chosen as the winners of the open research paper competition of the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements. Their paper, "A Proposal for the Design of the Successor to the Kyoto Protocol", was selected based on its innovative and realistic approach to post-2012 global climate policy.
September 2008
"A Proposal for the Design of the Successor to the Kyoto Protocol"
Discussion Paper
By Larry Karp and Jinhua Zhao
"The successor to the Kyoto Protocol should impose national ceilings on rich countries' greenhouse gas emissions and promote voluntary abatement by developing countries. Our proposal gives signatories the option of exercising an escape clause that relaxes their requirement to abate. This feature helps to solve the participation and compliance problems that have weakened the Protocol. We support the use of carefully circumscribed trade restrictions in order to reduce the real or perceived problem of carbon leakage."
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September 3, 2008
"The Role of Technology Policies in an International Climate Agreement"
Paper
By Joseph Aldy, Co-Director, Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements and Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board
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 technology policies was prepared by the Harvard Project leadership for the second dialogue.
August 2008
"The EU Emission Trading Scheme: A Prototype Global System?"
Discussion Paper
"The European Union's Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) is the world's first multinational cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases. As an agreement between sovereign nations with diverse historical, institutional, and economic circumstances, the EU ETS can be seen as a prototype of an architecture for an eventual global climate regime."
August 13, 2008
"Climate of Security"
Op-Ed, The Korea Times
By Joseph S. Nye, Sultan of Oman Professor of International Relations
"...Climate change will put stress on weak governments in poor countries and may lead to an increase in the number of failed states and become an indirect source of international conflict. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon argued in 2007 that the Darfur conflict 'began as an ecological crisis, arising in part from climate change.'
Such direct and indirect effects from human activity, while not malevolent in intention like terrorism, argue for a broadening of our concept of security and the adoption of new policies...."
2008
"Corporate Policy Preferences in the EU and the US: Emissions Trading as the Climate Compromise?"
Journal Article, Carbon and Climate Law Review, issue 2/2008
By Jonas Meckling, Research Fellow, Energy Technology Innovation Policy
Since the agreement of the Kyoto Protocol, business in the EU and the US has been split over the course of climate policy. This article reviews the regulatory preferences of major business associations on both sides of the Atlantic, and assesses whether the transatlantic gap on corporate positioning on climate change is actually narrowing and what the compromise solution might be.
August 5, 2008
"Climate-Change Skeptics Revisited"
Paper
By John P. Holdren, Director and Faculty Chair, Science, Technology and Public Policy Program
STPP Director John P. Holdren's August 4, 2008, op-ed, "Convincing Climate Change Skeptics", which appeared in both the Boston Globe and International Herald Tribune, has generated much criticism. Professor Holdren has written this essay in response.
