Harvard Project on Climate Agreements

The authors highlight why resolving double counting — counting the same emission reduction more than once to achieve climate mitigation targets — is critical for achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement and identify essential ingredients for a robust outcome that ensures environmental effectiveness and facilitates cost-effective mitigation.

With negotiators from more than 100 countries preparing to gather in Santiago, Chile for the 25th annual international climate conference in December, attention is focusing on how to build consensus for the accurate accounting of emission reductions. So-called “double counting,” which occurs when two or more parties claim credit for the same emission reductions, could undermine the integrity of the historic Paris Agreement by threatening the efficacy of cooperative action and carbon markets. In a new paper published today in Science, ten climate-change policy scholars outline a strategy that could solve the double counting dilemma and maintain current international momentum toward tackling global climate change.

In this interview, former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy discusses her many years of experience in community health, statewide government, and at the EPA, where she focused on initiatives relating to public health and the environment, including work on domestic climate policy, and the historic 2016 Paris Climate Agreement, in which more than 150 countries committed to reducing their greenhouse-gas emissions.

“Environmental Insights: Conversations on policy and practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program” is hosted by Robert Stavins, A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy and Economic Development at Harvard Kennedy School, and director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program.

Robert Stavins has written a brief intellectual biography of distinguished climate-change economist Martin Weitzman, who recently passed away. The essay appears on Stavins’ blog here, and also on VOX. See also a previous Harvard Project article on Weitzman’s passing here. Weitzman’s many contributions to the field of climate-change and broader environmental economics have changed the way scholars and policymakers approach the field. 

Host Steve Curwood sits down with Joe Aldy, economist and Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, to take a look at carbon pricing, a just transition for fossil fuel workers, and other key topics from the climate crisis town hall.

Faculty, scholars, and staff at the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements — with colleagues around the world — are deeply saddened by the loss of Martin L. Weitzman, recently retired professor of economics at Harvard University, who died unexpectedly on August 27, 2019. Weitzman’s contributions to climate-change — and broader environmental — economics and policy are considered extraordinarily important, within both academia and the policy community. He published widely, was elected as a fellow of the Econometric Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and for more than 25 years hosted with Robert Stavins the Harvard Seminar in Environmental Economics and Policy.

The author explores approaches to effectively managing innovation of negative emission technologies (NET), as a means to contribute significantly to alleviating climate change and its impacts. He notes that “The greatest challenge to climate change innovation is how to manage the transition of technology from the R&D stage to deployment. For a new solution such as NET to gain policymaker approval and resources needed to develop and deploy a practical operating system, advocates must come forward with a design-of-innovation program.

The Harvard Project on Climate Agreements conducted a research workshop on July 18–19, 2019 titled “Subnational Climate Change Policy in China.” Tsinghua University’s Institute of Energy, Environment, and Economy — directed by Professor Zhang Xiliang — hosted and co-sponsored the workshop. The Harvard Global Institute provided major support for the project.

GrowthPolicy’s Devjani Roy interviewed Robert Stavins, the A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy & Economic Development at Harvard Kennedy School, on climate policy.