Energy

8 Items

Containers are pictured on board of the ‘Star’ vessel of the China Shipping Container Lines shipping company at the harbor in Hamburg, Germany, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014.

AP Photo/Michael Sohn

Policy Brief - Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship and the German Council on Foreign Relations

Transatlantic Action Plan: China

| January 2021

Both sides of the Atlantic are converging in their assessment of the challenges China poses to transatlantic prosperity and democracy. The U.S. and Europe must now build on this convergence to advance a common strategy toward China. Only together can the U.S. and Europe, alongside other democratic nations, maintain the necessary leverage in trade, technology and multilateral engagement to hold China accountable to a set of standards that protects democratic societies and contributes to global stability.

To develop a stronger transatlantic approach toward China, the Biden administration must work to rebuild trust in the transatlantic relationship and recommit to multilateral alliances and institutions abandoned by President Trump. Europe for its part must unite and take action where it sees China exploiting its critical industries and infringing on its values. A common position on China at the EU–level and across several influential EU member states is critical to making transatlantic cooperation on China feasible.

In this Nov. 28, 2019 file photo, smoke and steam rise from a coal processing plant in Hejin in central China's Shanxi Province.

AP Photo/Sam McNeil

Policy Brief

China’s National Carbon Market: Paradox and Potential

| December 2020

China announced it would launch a national carbon market in 2017, yet this policy is taking years to come into effect. What will it take for a carbon market to work in command-and-control China? This policy brief explores an understudied challenge—emissions accounting—and identifies potential opportunities that have arisen in the first phase of China’s national carbon market.

Clouds over forest

Boris Misevic via Unsplash

Policy Brief

The Future of Carbon Offset Markets

| Oct. 22, 2020

Corporations, organizations, and even governments are purchasing offsets to reduce their carbon footprint. This policy brief provides an overview of the offset process – who buys them, who produces them, and who certifies them; describes the emerging challenges facing this market; and makes recommendations for the future.

Climate Finance

Policy Brief - Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, Belfer Center

Climate Finance

    Author:
  • The Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements
| November 2009

The finance of climate mitigation and adaptation in developing countries represents a key challenge in the negotiations on a post-2012 international climate agreement. Finance mechanisms are important because stabilizing the climate will require significant emissions reductions in both the developed and the developing worlds, and therefore large-scale investments in energy infrastructure. The current state of climate finance has been criticized for its insufficient scale, relatively low share of private-sector investment, and insufficient institutional framework. This policy brief presents options for improving and expanding climate finance.

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.

Export Control Development in the United Arab Emirates: From Commitments to Compliance

Policy Brief

Export Control Development in the United Arab Emirates: From Commitments to Compliance

The swiftness with which the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has launched its civil nuclear program presents a number of challenges for policymakers in seeking to ensure the program's safety and security. At the onset of its efforts, the UAE government consulted with a set of the world's leading nuclear suppliers to develop a framework that would help its nuclear program conform to the highest standards in terms of safety, security, and nonproliferation. The UAE drew on these consultations in making a sweeping set of international commitments in April 2008 to ensure that the sensitive nuclear materials and technologies it would acquire as part of its nuclear program would be securely controlled.1 While the UAE has been widely praised for the depth and breadth of the nonproliferation commitments it has made, it will be the UAE's efficacy at complying with them by which its success will be judged.