Reports & Papers

Kyriakos Mitsotakis (Harvard BA ’89), president of the Greek opposition party Nea Dimokratia (New Democracy,) laid out his vision for a tough but achievable strategy to revitalize the Greek economy and strengthen the nation’s ties to the European Union in an October 13 seminar.

On 24 and 25 November 2016 experts from politics and academia, including FDP Executive director Cathryn Clüver, discussed the impact of Brexit on several policy areas in a series of workshops at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. All events took place under Chatham House rules.

In pursuit of a workable successor to the Kyoto Protocol, this study offers a framework of formulas that produces precise numerical targets for emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases, in all regions of the world in all decades of this century....Firms, consumers, and researchers base their current decisions to invest in plant and equipment, consumer durables, or new technological possibilities on the expected future price of carbon: If government commitments are not credible from the start, then they will not raise the expected future carbon price.

This paper proposes a new architecture for international climate policy that might usefully be considered by delegates at COP 17 in Durban. It highlights a top-down approach that is designed to produce a fair distribution of burdens across countries, while achieving objectives of: (a) economic development; (b) decreasing wealth inequality; and (c) emission reductions consistent with holding the expected increase in global average temperature to 2 degrees Celsius. In addition, this discussion paper discusses several key design elements that will be important, especially from the perspective of developing countries, to the success of COP 17 and subsequent international climate negotiations. These design elements include agreements on burden sharing, choice of policy instruments, financial mechanisms and technology transfer, penalties for noncompliance, and linkages between trade and climate change.

In 2015, more than a million migrants were smuggled to Greece and Italy, and a similar
number of asylum claims were lodged in Germany. Presenting an overview of available
statistics, MEI Associate Philippe Fargues addresses three questions: Is this a migrant or a refugee crisis? What triggered the crisis? And last, how can the crisis be resolved?