Environment & Climate Change

"The role of market mechanisms for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and the relationship between climate change policy and international trade were the topics of a side-event panel discussion on Friday at the Conference of the Parties (COP21), the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Paris. The panel discussion, which was co-sponsored by the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, addressed a variety of issues related to the emissions-reduction targets that countries are putting forward as part of a new agreement to be concluded in Paris."

"We insist on being policy-relevant but not policy-prescriptive," Stavins says. "And that is something the negotiating teams appreciate. Whereas many groups have an ax to grind, we do not; we just want to help them understand the nature and dimensions of specific issues and how they can address them."

"Last year at the United Nations General Assembly, heads of state came together to talk about climate change. We had an announcement on carbon pricing signed on by more than 70 countries, more than 1,000 businesses — reflecting this emerging view of both those in public policy and those using the technologies in the business world — that pricing carbon is the way to get us off of fossil fuels, to create that incentive for the technologies that will allow us to still enjoy the level of economic development that we aspire to, without having an adverse impact on the climate."

The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) launched a process to confront risks posed by global climate change. It has led to a dichotomy between countries with serious emission-reduction responsibilities and others with no responsibilities whatsoever. This has prevented progress, but the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action suggests the prospect for a better way forward and an openness to outside-the-box thinking. Scholars and practitioners have a new opportunity to contribute innovative proposals for a future international climate policy architecture.

Over the last decade, carbon trading has emerged as the policy instrument of choice in the industrialized world to address global climate change. This paper argues that a transnational business coalition, representing mostly energy firms and energy-intensive manufacturers, actively promoted the global rise of carbon trading. In this process, business could draw on the support of government allies and business-oriented environmental groups, particularly in the UK and the US.