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Begin New Search Topic Treaties and Agreements Content Type Working Paper Publishing Institution Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University

1. The Iran Nuclear Deal: A Definitive Guide

Author:
Gary Samore
Publication Date:
08-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
This report has been produced in the interest of contributing to informed Congressional review and public discourse on a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). It provides a concise description of the agreement and the accompanying UN Security Council Resolution 2231. It also includes a balanced assessment of the agreement's strengths and weaknesses with respect to its central objective to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The team of experts who prepared the report includes Democrats, Republications, independents, and internationals. Noting areas of disagreement among themselves, they agreed that this report provides an accurate description and balanced assessment of the agreement.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, Treaties and Agreements, and Sanctions
Political Geography:
Iran and Middle East

2. The SO2 Allowance Trading System: The Ironic History of a Grand Policy Experiment

Author:
Robert N. Stavins and Richard Schmalensee
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Two decades have passed since the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 launched a grand experiment in market-based environmental policy: the SO2 cap-and-trade system. That system performed well but created four striking ironies. First, by creating this system to reduce SO2 emissions to curb acid rain, the government did the right thing for the wrong reason. Second, a substantial source of this system's cost-effectiveness was an unanticipated consequence of earlier railroad deregulation. Third, it is ironic that cap-and-trade has come to be demonized by conservative politicians in recent years, since this market-based, cost-effective policy innovation was initially championed and implemented by Republican administrations. Fourth, court decisions and subsequent regulatory responses have led to the collapse of the SO2 market, demonstrating that what the government gives, the government can take away.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, Government, Markets, Treaties and Agreements, and Law

3. International Paretianism: A Defense

Author:
Eric A. Posner and David Weisbach
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
A treaty satisfies what we call International Paretianism if it advances the interests of all states that join it, so that no state is made worse off. The principle might seem obvious, but it rules out nearly all the major proposals for a climate treaty, including proposals advanced by academics and by government officials. We defend International Paretianism, and for that reason urge commentators in the debate over climate justice to abandon efforts to right past wrongs, redistribute wealth, and achieve other abstract ideals through a climate treaty.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, International Cooperation, and Treaties and Agreements

4. Post-Durban Climate Policy Architecture Based on Linkage of Cap-and-Trade Systems

Author:
Robert N. Stavins
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
The outcome of the December 2011 United Nations climate negotiations in Durban, South Africa, provides an important new opportunity to move toward an international climate policy architecture that is capable of delivering broad international participation and significant global CO2 emissions reductions at reasonable cost. We evaluate one important component of potential climate policy architecture for the post-Durban era: links among independent tradable permit systems for greenhouse gases. Because linkage reduces the cost of achieving given targets, there is tremendous pressure to link existing and planned cap-and-trade systems, and in fact, a number of links already or will soon exist. We draw on recent political and economic experience with linkage to evaluate potential roles that linkage may play in post-Durban international climate policy, both in a near-term, de facto architecture of indirect links between regional, national, and sub-national cap-and-trade systems, and in longer-term, more comprehensive bottom-up architecture of direct links. Although linkage will certainly help to reduce long-term abatement costs, it may also serve as an effective mechanism for building institutional and political structure to support a future climate agreement.
Topic:
Climate Change, Economics, Environment, International Cooperation, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
South Africa and Durban

5. Proposed Liability Framework for Geological Sequestration of Carbon Dioxide

Author:
Wendy B. Jacobs
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Harvard Law School's Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic* supports immediate large-scale carbon capture and sequestration ("CCS") demonstration projects as part of a larger national and global effort to address climate change. Large-scale CCS projects (those that sequester at least 1.5 million tons of captured carbon dioxide ("CO2") annually) must be demonstrated soon to confirm CCS as a viable strategy to combat climate change and to show the commitment of the United States to achieving meaningful reductions in domestic CO2 emissions.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
United States

6. The Dynamics of Climate Agreements

Author:
Bård Harstad
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
I provide a novel dynamic model with private provision of public bads and investments in technologies. The analysis is tractable and the MPE unique. By adding incomplete contracts, I derive implications of and for international climate treaties. While the non-cooperative equilibrium is bad, short-term agreements are worse due to hold-up problems. A long-term agreement should be more ambitious if it is relatively short-lasting and the technological externality large. The length itself should increase in this externality. With renegotiation, the outcome is first best. The technological externalities are related to trade agreements, making them strategic substitutes to climate treaties.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, and Treaties and Agreements

7. Assessing Vulnerabilities to the Effects of Global Change: An Eight-Step Approach

Author:
Colin Polsky, Dagmar Schröter, and Marybeth Long Martello
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
There is a growing call among researchers interested in studying global change and associated effects on society and ecosystems to examine vulnerabilities as well as impacts. Such a move would require a renewed emphasis on the factors that constrain and enable coupled human - environment systems to adapt to stress. Although a picture is emerging of what general factors global change vulnerability assessments should address, it is less clear what methods are needed for this endeavor. This paper presents results from a workshop held in October 2002 to explore the issue of methods and models for vulnerability assessments. The results include an objective for global change vulnerability assessments, a set of five information criteria that vulnerability assessments should satisfy for achieving this objective, and a set of eight steps designed to satisfy those criteria. The proposed objective for global change vulnerability assessments is to inform the decision - making of specific stakeholders about options for adapting to the effects of global change. The five criteria for achieving the objective are that vulnerability assessments should: engage a flexible knowledge base, be place - based, consider multiple and interacting stresses, examine differential adaptive capacity between and within populations, and be prospective as well as historical. The eight steps for satisfying the criteria are: define the study area in tandem with stakeholders, get to know places over time, hypothesize who is vulnerable to what, develop a causal model of vulnerability, find indicators for the components of vulnerability, weight and combine the indicators, project future vulnerability, and communicate vulnerability creatively. We expect most readers to identify some of the steps as self - evident and part of their well - established disciplinary practices. However, most readers should also identify one or more steps as uncommon to their research traditions. Thus taken together the eight steps presented here constitute a novel methodological framework.
Topic:
Security, Environment, Human Welfare, and Treaties and Agreements