In this working paper, the biophysical factors and socio-economic conditions that led to Land Use and Land Cover Changes (LULC) and land degradation in Burkina Faso are reviewed. It is found that the country is densely populated and population continues to rise at a rate of more than 3% a year....

Integrated assessment models (IAMs) provide key inputs to decision-makers on economically efficient climate policies, and technical change is one of the key assumptions in any IAM that estimates mitigation costs. We conduct a systematic survey of how technical change is currently represented in...

The way in which climate policy and climate risks are currently accounted for in financial and real investment decisions is inadequate. The paper demonstrates weaknesses in methods presently used and proposes an alternative that aims to bridge the duration gap between climate policy modeling and...

Long-term Strategies for Decarbonization, termed long-term low emissions and development strategies (LT-LEDS) by the UNFCCC, and sometimes referred to as LTS, can influence the transition to a resilient and decarbonized economy. LT-LEDS additionally make it possible to identify investments and...

The Paris Agreement has set stringent temperature targets to limit global warming to 2°C above preindustrial level, with efforts to stay well below 2°C. At the same time, its bottom-up approach with voluntary national contributions makes the implementation of these ambitious targets...

Negative emissions technologies (NETs) feature prominently in most scenarios that halt climate change and deliver on the Paris Agreement's temperature goal. As of today, however, their maturity and desirability are highly debated. Since the social value of new technologies depends on how novel...

Environmental regulations have consistently been found to spur innovation in "clean" technologies, with one significant exception. Past cap-and-trade programs have encouraged adoption of existing pollution control technologies, but had little effect on innovation. Several explanations have been...

The availability of technology plays a major role in the feasibility and costs of climate policy. Nonetheless, technological change is highly uncertain and capital intensive, requiring risky efforts in research and development of clean energy technologies. In this paper, we introduce a two-track...

This paper revisits one of the rare success stories in global environmental cooperation: the Montreal Protocol and the phase-out of ozone-depleting substances. I show that the protocol increased science and innovation on alternatives to ozone-depleting substances, and argue that agreements can...

This paper builds on the assumption that OECD countries are (or will soon be) taking actions to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. These actions, however, will not be sufficient to control global warming, unless developing countries also get involved in the cooperative effort to reduce GHG...