Science, Technology, and Public Policy

In the first of two articles on post-COP28 carbon financing, Research Fellow Ely Sandler shares insights on the legacy of COP28.

In the second of two articles on COP28 outcomes, Ely Sandler shares insights on the some of the changes needed to scale carbon finance.

Breaking up Big Tech companies could trigger unintended, and possibly irreparable, collateral damage to America’s quest to remain the world’s leader in new technologies, write Venkatesh Narayanamurti and Steven C. Currall.

Ely Sandler argues that COP27 progress on the Paris Agreement's Article 6 may be a smoking gun for the death of voluntary carbon markets - but suggests a better model that might take its place.

Ely Sandler and Daniel Schrag propose a new approach to Article 6 of the Paris agreement, arguing that states must use cross-border investment to finance the energy transition. By linking additionality to an investment’s impact on cost of capital, Sandler and Schrag demonstrate how Article 6 can leverage blended finance to de-risk private investment, creating a new model of public private partnership. The paper uses case studies from the Middle East and North Africa region to demonstrate the potential economic, environmental and political benefits of cooperation on Article 6.  

In reshaping the National Science Foundation and other institutions to best support innovation, policymakers should apply evidence-based principles drawn from scholarship and previous experience, write Steven Currall and Venkatesh Narayanamurti.

Over the past decade, there have been consistent alarm signals about U.S. leadership in science and technology. Venkatesh Narayanamurti argues that the remedy is not merely additional funding for R&D, but also more effective funding in technoscientific research, a key engine of innovation.

What was accomplished? COP26 created pressure for some countries to produce revised  Nationally Determined Contributions, helped catalyze new pledges to reduce emissions (including from India), led to the approval of the rules to govern international cooperation and carbon markets (the Paris Rulebook) addressing the issue of double counting, and served as the Launchpad for some novel initiatives that could play a useful role. Among the announcements that were made, was one that recognizes the importance of strategic investment and government action to lower the cost of technologies to reach carbon neutrality.

In The Genesis of Technoscientific Revolutions, Venkatesh Narayanamurti and Jeffrey Tsao propose a new and holistic system, a rethinking of the nature and nurturing of research. They share lessons from their vast research experience in the physical sciences and engineering, as well as from perspectives drawn from the history and philosophy of science and technology, research policy and management, and the evolutionary biological, complexity, physical, and economic sciences.

Kelly Sims Gallagher asserts that politicians' pledges of dramatic long-term reductions should not let them off the hook for their failure to achieve more modest progress in the short term.