Harvard Project on Climate Agreements

Harvard University Professor James Stock, who serves as Harvard's inaugural Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability and director of the new Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability, expressed his hopes for a smooth domestic energy transition during the newest episode of “Environmental Insights.”

A major project on methane emissions, led by Harvard Project on Climate Agreements Director Robert Stavins, is the recipient of one of five inaugural grants for cross-disciplinary, solutions-focused projects tackling the challenges posed by global climate change — awarded by Harvard’s Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability. The grants were announced on Monday (February 13).

Having served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Climate & Energy Economics in the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 2021, Catherine Wolfram has some particularly relevant and insightful insights to offer on the development and implementation of climate change policy. Wolfram, the Cora Jane Flood Professor of Business Administration at the Haas School of Business at the University of California discussed her time in government service and on her hopes for a carbon pricing scheme during the latest episode of “Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program,” a podcast produced by the Harvard Environmental Economics Program.

Reducing methane emissions can buy the world crucial time to avoid catastrophic global warming. A Harvard team that includes Harvard Project on Climate Agreements Robert Stavins, is helping provide policymakers with the tools to help policymakers do just that.

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.

While the Paris Agreement provides the framework for the nations of the world to slow the growth of CO2 emissions, additional policy and technological tools will have to be deployed to meet the challenge of climate change. That’s the perspective expressed by Daniel Bodansky, the Regents’ Professor of Law at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, during the latest episode of “Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program,” a podcast produced by the Harvard Environmental Economics Program.

Agreement by negotiators at the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP-27) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt earlier this month on an international fund to provide funding for small nations suffering from climate change was a significant outcome. Yet the inability to achieve substantive commitments by nations to increase their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) was a disappointment. That’s the perspective offered by Billy Pizer, the Vice President for Research and Policy Engagement at Resources for the Future, during the latest episode of “Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program,” a podcast produced by the Harvard Environmental Economics Program.

Following the COP27 climate conference in Egypt, Robert Stavins said in an interview with the Harvard Gazette that the talks were both frustrating and hopeful: frustrating because they did little to accelerate the slow pace of action to reduce carbon emissions, and hopeful because of a reawakened dialogue between the world’s biggest emitters—the U.S. and China—and movement to address climate-related damage to the world’s most vulnerable nations.

What is really striking is that the most important development at COP-27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt has taken place thousands of miles away from where the negotiations are taking place. Namely in Bali, Indonesia, where President Biden and President Xi of China met, shook hands, and then engaged on November 14 in a three-hour conversation in which, among other topics, they signaled returning to the cooperative stance that had been so important previously on climate change.

Please note that the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements hosted or co-hosted two official Side Events at COP27 last week.

China and the United States are back on a productive track to adopt more cooperative approaches on global climate change. Those were the sentiments expressed by Harvard Project Director Robert Stavins on Wednesday (November 16) during a side event focusing on the China National Climate Change Assessment Report at COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.