Identifying Options for a New International Climate Regime Arising from the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action

The Harvard Project on Climate Agreements and the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) convened thirty leading international researchers and policymakers on May 23 and 24, 2013 at MCC in Berlin. Over these two days, participants identified and discussed options for a new international climate regime based on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action. The Platform, adopted by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in December 2011, provides an opportunity for all key greenhouse-gas-emitting countries to engage in a new international climate regime that could bring about meaningful emissions reductions within a feasible timetable and at acceptable costs. The Platform calls for a new agreement to address climate change by the Twenty-first Conference of the Parties (COP-21) of the UNFCCC, in Paris in late 2015, which would go into effect in 2020.

This Issue Brief draws from and extends the discussion at the workshop. It examines two major dimensions of a possible 2015 agreement: 1) The degree to which the agreement reflects "top-down" direction to national governments, "bottom-up" policy initiatives from national governments—or both; and 2) How the new agreement might enable increasing ambition over time with regard to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, on the part of national governments.

The Issue Brief will inform an official side event at COP-19, in Warsaw, which the Harvard Project will hold in collaboration with the Mercator Institute, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and the Centre for European Economic Research. This side event  will be held on Wednesday, November 20, 3:00 – 4:30 pm, in Room Torun at the conference center hosting the COP.