KYOTO PROTOCOL AND POST-KYOTO OPTIONS
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."
AP Photo
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."
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.
July 2008
"Toward a Post-Kyoto Climate Change Architecture: A Political Analysis"
Discussion Paper
By Robert O. Keohane and Kal Raustiala
"Any international agreement to address climate change must rest on broad public support in developed nations for mitigation actions. We propose an international climate architecture that builds on such public support — which we hope will be forthcoming — and uses multilateral international institutions to extend its effects to countries without such "green" publics."
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.
June 3, 2008
Summary of European Stakeholders Meeting: International Climate Policy after 2012
Summary
The Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements, together with the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, and the Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Climate Change, hosted a workshop of leading thinkers on international climate policy in Venice, Italy, on May 15–16. On the second day, leaders from business, environmental advocacy, and government, along with the assembled academics, discussed key topics in international climate change policy, including ways to engage developing countries, how to maintain global competitiveness despite diverse national mitigation policies, and proposals for international agreements that could succeed the Kyoto Protocol.
