Science & Technology

5 Items

Photovoltaic panels rotating

Policy Brief - Harvard Project on Climate Agreements

Treaty Design and Duration: Effects on R&D, Participation, and Compliance

    Author:
  • Bard Harstad
| January 2013

Climate policy is complicated. For a treaty to be beneficial, one must think through carefully how it will work, once it is implemented. Crucial questions include the following: How should an international treaty be designed? Should one negotiate commitments for a five-year period, or for much longer? Assuming that the treaty specifies aggregate or country-specific emission caps, what should these caps be and how should they change over time? How should the agreement be updated once policymakers, scholars, and the public learn more about the severity of the climate-change problem, or about the effects of the policy? Can the treaty be designed to encourage investments in "green" abatement technology or renewable energy sources? Finally, how can one motivate countries to participate and comply with such an agreement?

Ships anchor near the entrance of the Long Beach Harbor on Aug. 25, 2004. Marine terminal operators at the largest U.S. port revealed a plan to expand their cargo operations into the evening and weekend hours to ease traffic congestion & GHG emissions.

AP Photo

Policy Brief - Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, Belfer Center

The São Paulo Proposal for an Improved International Climate Agreement

    Author:
  • Erik Haites
| January 2010

An effective international climate agreement poses formidable challenges. Existing agreements, naturally, have some good features. Further improvements are being discussed in the current negotiations. But the cost and uncertainty associated with regular renegotiation of commitments is not being addressed. The São Paulo Proposal suggests mechanisms that would avoid the need for regular renegotiation of commitments and suggests other ways to make international climate agreements more effective.

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.

International Climate Technology Strategies

Discussion Paper - Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, Belfer Center

International Climate Technology Strategies

    Author:
  • Richard G. Newell
| October 2008

This paper considers opportunities for improved and expanded international development and transfer of climate technologies. It characterizes the economic scale of the climate technology challenge, and it reviews the pattern of public and private R&D and the rationale for R&D policies within the global innovation system. The paper clarifies the importance of options for inducing technology market demand through domestic GHG pricing, international trade, and international development assistance. It then turns to upstream innovation strategies, including international coordination and funding of climate technology R&D, and knowledge transfer through intellectual property. The paper concludes that a successful international effort to accelerate and then sustain the rate of development and transfer of GHG mitigation technologies must harness a diverse set of markets and institutions beyond those explicitly related to climate, to include those for energy, trade, development, and intellectual property.

Harvard Launches Major Initiative to Help Design an International Climate Agreement

Press Release

Harvard Launches Major Initiative to Help Design an International Climate Agreement

Summer 2007

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.— Harvard University announced a two-year project to help identify key design elements of a future international agreement on climate change, drawing upon the ideas of leading thinkers from academia, private industry, government, and advocacy organizations, both in the industrialized world and in developing countries.