The Paris Agreement invites signatory countries to formulate and communicate long-term low greenhouse gas emission development strategies (LT-LEDS). This report compares the experience of three developed countries that have communicated LT-LEDS within the framework of the United Nations...

In international climate change negotiations, China's role is an issue of perennial concern. In particular, the lack of quantitative, absolute emissions commitments from China has been the focus. In line with changing domestic and international contexts, China is recalibrating its stance and...

Shifting public and private investment from “brown” to “green” is an essential part of climate change. The post-2020 climate agreement to be agreed at COP 21 in December 2015 has the potential to play a significant role in signalling the importance of such a shift. This paper explores...

The aim of this paper is to explore what a flexible and durable 2015 climate change agreement could look like and propose pragmatic options for the design of such an agreement. A durable 2015 climate change agreement would continue to be ambitious, fair and effective in 2020 and beyond. An...

We demonstrate the advantages of a climate treaty based solely on rules for international permit markets when there is uncertainty about abatement costs and environmental damages. Such a ‘Rules Treaty’ comprises a scaling factor and a refunding rule. Each signatory can freely choose the...

After twenty years of global negotiations, the world is still far from a comprehensive climate agreement. The "top-down" approach embodied by the Kyoto Protocol has all but stalled, chiefly due to disagreements over levels of ambition and objections to financial transfers. To avoid those...

This paper examines the political economy aspects, particularly the influence of the Clean Development Mechanism, in clean energy and climate change policies in the states of Bahia and Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. The different mechanisms for responding to climate change are financing...

We model countries' choice of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as a dynamic game. Emissions generate immediate benefits to the emitting country but also increase atmospheric GHG concentrations that negatively affect present and future welfare of all countries. Because there are no international...

We characterize the optimal policy and policy instruments for self-enforcing treaties when countries invest in green technology before they pollute. If the discount factor is too small to support the first best, then both emissions and investments will be larger than in the first best, when...

In this paper, we discuss the endogenous formation of climate coalitions in an issue-linkage regime. In particular, we propose to build a link to the issue of preferential free trade. Trade privileges exclusively granted to members of the climate coalition work as an incentive mechanism for...