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Robert Stavins & Joe Aldy
Jeffrey Frankel
Joe Aldy, William Hogan & Jeffrey Frankel
Robert Stavins
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Robert Stavins, Joseph Aldy, Scott Barrett, Jeffrey Frankel
“Climate concerns have gone mainstream,” declared Kennedy School Professor Robert Stavins to open a panel addressing climate change in a post Kyoto world at M-RCBG’s 25th Anniversary celebration. Stavins, one of a group of scholars who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, was joined by Joseph Aldy of Resources for the Future, Scott Barrett of Johns Hopkins University and Jeffrey Frankel of the Harvard Kennedy School to outline possibilities for tackling climate change when the Kyoto Protocol expire in 2012.
Stavins underscored the need for international collective action over unilateral approaches, noting many in the scientific and economic communities recognize the latter as insufficient to effectively tackle climate change. Stavins stressed the need for next steps to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, and turned to the panelists to explore some of the possibilities.
Scott Barrett acknowledged that the Kyoto treaty is a modest first step, but one that provides us with an instructional framework for subsequent action. Supporting a “carrots and sticks” approach, Barrett sees potential in combining restrictions (particularly on chemicals) with incentives for advances in technology and knowledge sharing.
Joe Aldy echoed Barrett's call for greater research and development, but focused on four themes for future climate change policies: (1) “To get institutions right,” focusing on infrastructure rather than goods; (2) “Coordinating domestic cap-and-trade policies and comparable emission taxes” for market-based approaches; (3) Fairer market policies that include progressive targets for developing countries, and integration with development and trade policies; and (4) Promoting participation in any next steps. Aldy also cautioned against “naming and shaming,” arguing that countries could abandon treaties if they are penalized for noncompliance. Future treaties should instead focus on targets, timetables and coordinated policies.
Jeffrey Frankel noted that though inadequate, the Kyoto Protocol not only remains the only multilateral agreement to focus on climate change, but also features several positive political and economic elements. He outlined six issues that, if addressed, could help frame a more effective and viable climate change policy in 2012: (1) Comprehensive participation by developing countries; (2) Efficient minimization of the economic costs of achieving environmental goals; (3) Dynamic consistency, so change of governmental regimes does not endanger previously made commitments; (4) Equity across developing and developed nations regarding contributions of and payments for earlier CO2 emissions; (5) Compliance equity to avoid huge economic costs of obligation fulfillment; and (6) “Robustness under certainty” that fosters setting realistic targets taking ex-ante and ex-post costs into consideration. Frankel supports targeted reductions in emissions so that the developing countries that join this system of quantitative targets would gain from trade.
As the post-Kyoto world comes more closely into view, Aldy, Frankel and Stavins will be working through the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements (HPICA), to “inform design of scientifically sound, economically rational and politically pragmatic post-2012 international climate policy architecture.”
- Alok Chopra
MPA/ID (2nd year)
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Robert Stavins
Robert Stavins & Joe Aldy
Joe Aldy, William Hogan & Jeffrey Frankel
Jeffrey Frankel
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