The economist and HKS professor is passionate about solving what may be humanity's most important and perplexing problem: How to untangle fossil fuels from the global economy.

Joseph Aldy describes how the United States can work toward its ambitious climate goals and ensure a level playing field for U.S. businesses by using countervailing duties under international trade law, without the need for new legislation.

This paper considers the treatment of co-benefits in benefit-cost analysis of federal air quality regulations. Using a comprehensive data set on all major Clean Air Act rules issued by the Environmental Protection Agency over the period 1997–2019, the authors show that (1) co-benefits make up a significant share of the monetized benefits; (2) among the categories of co-benefits, those associated with reductions in fine particulate matter are the most significant; and (3) co-benefits have been pivotal to the quantified net benefit calculation in nearly half of cases.

Professor Joseph Aldy says the incoming U.S. administration can breathe new life into global efforts against climate change, but faces daunting political and economic obstacles.

Joseph Aldy advocates for a carbon-price benchmark — which could be set initially at $50 per ton and rise over time — that would reflect the benefits of reducing the pollution causing climate change.

As Congress and the Trump Administration continue discussions surrounding a second major COVID-19 economic relief bill, many observers are arguing that any eventual economic recovery package ought to include green energy initiatives to help the United States move along a path toward a zero-carbon emissions future.  Drawing upon his White House experience, Joseph Aldy, professor of the practice of public policy at Harvard Kennedy School and formerly a Special Assistant to the President for Energy and Environment during the Obama Administration, shared his perspectives on October 19 on lessons learned from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that policymakers can apply to future economic stimulus negotiations.

Harvard Kennedy School professor Joseph E. Aldy discussed how policymakers can learn from past models to maximize the impact of current American energy legislation at an October 19 webinar hosted by the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements.

At the annual UN General Assembly, President Xi of China pledged that his nation would peak its carbon emissions before 2030 and hit net zero emissions by 2060, without revealing how the nation plans to reach those goals. Joe Aldy, an economist and Professor of Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School, joins Host Steve Curwood to discuss what this step by the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter means for international climate policy in the context of the failed climate leadership by the Trump Administration.

The seminal contributions of William Nordhaus to scholarship on the long-run macroeconomics of global climate change are clear. Much more challenging to identify are the impacts of Nordhaus and his research on public policy in this domain. The authors examine three conceptually distinct pathways for that influence: his personal participation in the policy world; his research’s direct contribution to the formulation and evaluation of public policy; and his research’s indirect role informing public policy

In this edition of Columbia Energy Exchange, host Jason Bordoff and Professor Joseph Aldy explore the role of climate-change and broader environmental policy in the U.S. federal government’s emergency economic stimulus funding package.