Asia & the Pacific

5 Items

Discussion Paper - Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, Belfer Center

Incentives and Stability of International Climate Coalitions: An Integrated Assessment

    Authors:
  • Valentina Bosetti
  • Carlo Carraro
  • Enrica De Cian
  • Emanuele Massetti
  • Massimo Tavoni
| March 2012

"A successful international climate policy framework will have to meet two conditions, build a coalition of countries that is potentially effective and give each member country sufficient incentives to join and remain in this coalition. Such coalition should be capable of delivering ambitious emission reduction even if some countries do not take mitigation action. In addition, it should meet the target without exceedingly high mitigation costs and deliver a net benefit to member countries as a whole. The novel contribution of this paper is mostly methodological, but it also adds a better qualification of well-known results that are policy relevant."

A man looks at an exhibit on climate change during the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico, Dec. 1, 2010. The host nation has called the U.S. pledge to cut GHG emissions "modest," while praising other nonbinding offers made by India and China.

AP Photo

Analysis & Opinions - Christian Science Monitor

Why Cancun Trumped Copenhagen: Warmer Relations on Rising Temperatures

| December 20, 2010

The climate change talks in Cancun, Mexico, didn't solve all the world's climate problems. But they were hugely successful. Through the Cancun Agreements, 194 countries reached landmark consensus (even the US and China) to set emissions targets and limit global temperature increases.

Leadership of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change prepare to announce the Cancun Agreements at the COP16 CMP6 Climate Change Conference in Cancún, Mexico.

UN Climate Talks Photo

News - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

What Happened (and Why): An Assessment of the Cancun Agreements

| Dec. 13, 2010

The international climate negotiations in Cancun, Mexico, have concluded, and despite the gloom-and-doom predictions that dominated the weeks and months leading up to Cancun, the Sixteenth Conference of the Parties (COP-16) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) must be judged a success.  It represents a set of modest steps forward.  Nothing more should be expected from this process.

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo speaks at the High-Level Dialogue on Climate Change, June 17, 2009, at the Asian Development Bank in the Philippines. The bank pledged to double its clean energy investments in the region to $2 billion yearly.

AP Photo

Policy Brief - Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, Belfer Center

Three Pillars of Post-2012 International Climate Policy

| October 23, 2009

Our proposal for a post-2012 international global climate policy agreement contains three essential elements: meaningful involvement by key industrialized and developing nations; an emphasis on an extended time path of targets; and inclusion of market-based policy instruments. This architecture is consistent with fundamental aspects of the science, economics, and politics of global climate change.