Environment & Climate Change

Climate change poses an unprecedented threat to humanity, one that appears increasingly likely to reduce global standards of living dramatically within our lifetime, and cause untold damage in the longer term. And, because addressing such a daunting planetary challenge requires radical approaches, there have been wide-ranging discussions about what the world must urgently do to limit the rise in global temperature to less than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

Now in its seventh edition, Economics of the Environment serves as a valuable supplement to environmental economics text books and as a stand-alone reference book of key, up-to-date readings from the field. Edited by Robert N. Stavins, the book covers the core areas of environmental economics courses as taught around the world; and the included authors are the top scholars in the field. Overall, more than half of the chapters are new to this edition while the rest have remained seminal works.

The Paris Agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has achieved one of two key necessary conditions for ultimate success—a broad base of participation among the countries of the world. But another key necessary condition has yet to be achieved—adequate collective ambition of the individual nationally determined contributions. How can the climate negotiators provide a structure that will include incentives to increase ambition over time? An important part of the answer can be international linkage of regional, national, and sub-national policies.

In this review, the authors synthesize the literature on international climate change cooperation and identify key policy implications, as well as those findings most relevant for the research community. Their scope includes critical evaluation of the organization and implementation of agreements and instruments, retrospective analysis of cooperative efforts, and explanations of successes and failures.

The Harvard Project on Climate Agreements conducted an ambitious program of panel events and meetings with delegates at the Twenty-Fourth Conference of the Parties (COP-24) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), held in Katowice, Poland, December 3–15, 2018. This was the eleventh of the annual COPs in which the Harvard Project has participated, beginning with COP-13 in Bali, Indonesia in December 2007.

Efforts to combat climate change should be pragmatic above all else.

As the single largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world and the source of almost 30 percent of the CO2 released into our atmosphere, China faces an enormous challenge in reaching its goal of zero or negative emissions—known as deep decarbonization.

Henry Lee, Director of the Environment and Natural Resources Program (ENRP), and Dan Schrag, Co-Director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, head a team of researchers from the U.S. and China who have been examining China’s work in achieving deep decarbonization in the People’s Republic. The team plans to publish its findings in a book to be released in 2019. 

In an interview, John Holdren tells Eos that strong measures still could help avoid the most catastrophic damages from climate change.

Robert Stavins describes the progress made on curbing greenhouse-gas emissions at the recent climate conference in Katowice, Poland.

The Harvard Project’s panel event on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, co-hosted by the Enel Foundation, drew upon a major research paper, “Governing Cooperative Approaches under the Paris Agreement,” by Michael Mehling. A full summary of the panel can be found here. Mehling’s paper may be found here.