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211. Tallying Updated NDCs to Gauge Emissions Reductions in 2030 and Progress toward Net Zero

Author:
James Glynn, Kristin Smith, Melissa Lott, Lilly Yejin Lee, Jordan Shenhar, and Pekun Bakare
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP), Columbia University
Abstract:
The Paris Agreement included two particularly crucial innovations for supporting greenhouse gas emissions reductions: a voluntary, bottom-up nationally determined contribution (NDC) and a ratchet mechanism. The latter change meant that, in the run-up to the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Glasgow last fall, countries prepared updated NDCs—specific commitments to reduce emissions by 2030—that outlined their increased ambition. After the adoption of the Glasgow Climate Pact, many observers have focused on what these NDCs, as well as countries’ pledges to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by certain dates, could mean for the world’s ability to limit global temperature rise to well below 2° Celsius—the central goal of the Paris Agreement. But another critical question remains: how would these targets and ambitions drive near-term emissions reductions. Understanding the answer can provide insights to investors, utilities, or others with decision time horizons of 10–15 years and that wish to align with net-zero ambitions. This report, part of the energy systems modeling program at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, aims to assess the alignment between updated NDCs and current net-zero pledges for policy makers and industry leaders to gain insight into their own national and corporate decarbonization outlooks. It considers all classes of NDCs, including: 1) percentage reduction in emissions relative to a historical base year level, 2) percentage reduction compared to a 2030 business-as-usual scenario, and 3) reduction in emissions intensity of gross domestic product. It presents an estimate of the percentage reduction in greenhouse gases (GHGs) from 2015 to 2030 for all commitments outlined in NDCs for countries that also have a net-zero target. Overall, this analysis finds that the NDCs of economies with 2050 net-zero pledges would lead to a 27 percent reduction in GHG emissions by 2030, relative to 2015. However, countries with post-2050 net-zero pledges are projected to increase their emissions by 10 percent between 2015 and 2030, lowering the net global emission reduction to 9 percent over this period.
Topic:
Environment, Green Technology, Carbon Emissions, and Decarbonization
Political Geography:
Global Focus

212. Government Internet Shutdowns Are Changing. How Should Citizens and Democracies Respond?

Author:
Steven Feldstein
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Governments worldwide continue to deploy internet shutdowns and network disruptions to quell mass protests, forestall election losses, reinforce military coups, or cut off conflict areas from the outside world. Data from the past few years show that incidences of global shutdowns have remained steadily high: 196 documented incidents in 2018, 213 incidents in 2019, and 155 in 2020. The first five months of 2021 recorded fifty shutdown incidents.1 Government-instigated internet shutdowns largely took place in relation to five event types: mass demonstrations, military operations and coups, elections, communal violence and religious holidays, and school exams. As Clément Voule, the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, pointedly observes: “Shutdowns are lasting longer, becoming harder to detect and targeting particular social media and messaging applications and specific localities and communities.”2 Events in Russia have put a finer point on internet shutdown trends. On March 4, 2022, Roskomnadzor, the Russian internet regulator, announced that it would block Facebook and Twitter and would ban new uploads to TikTok.3 On March 14, it added Instagram to the banned list.4 Russian authorities have also restricted access to a slew of news websites, including the BBC, Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Voice of America. Roskomnadzor claimed these measures were enacted in response to new limits imposed by platforms on Russian propaganda outlets—accusing Facebook of “discrimination.”5 The Kremlin’s crackdown is an ominous signal about where the shutdown struggle is headed in authoritarian countries. Despite these bleak trends, there is a growing international consensus—at least among liberal democracies—that protecting internet access is integrally linked to freedoms of expression and association and forms a crucial part of the global democracy and human rights agenda. This paper picks up on this emerging norm and probes several key questions: What can citizens do to evade authoritarian controls and regain internet access? How can democratic governments support these efforts and push back against governments that shut down and block the internet? The short answer is that there is a multitude of responses available to democracies and civil society organizations to push back against internet blackouts and network disruptions. Democracies can exert meaningful pressure against repressive governments to ease internet blocks, and citizens are able to exercise creative options to circumvent internet controls. The paper walks through different tools available to citizens to evade internet controls. It examines where internet shutdown trends are headed and incentives for particular regimes to adopt new modes of censorship. It then presents a multifaceted strategy for democracies, civil society organizations, and technology developers and companies to counter internet shutdowns.
Topic:
Government, Science and Technology, Democracy, and Internet
Political Geography:
Russia and Global Focus

213. Retail Central Bank Digital Currency: Has Its Time Come?

Author:
Pierre L. Siklos
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
As central banks around the world prepare to launch central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), this paper looks at issues surrounding a retail version of CBDCs that would complement notes and coins for consumers. To build the public’s trust in this type of digital currency, concerns such as loss of privacy and security of financial transactions must first be addressed. In addition to these concerns, CBDCs carry the potential risks of overburdening central banks and disrupting cross-border transactions. These and other challenges can be overcome by ensuring the right regulatory and supervisory measures are in place before CBDCs take hold.
Topic:
Regulation, Finance, Central Bank, Banking, and Digital Currency
Political Geography:
Global Focus

214. The Causes and Consequences of Refugee Flows: A Contemporary Re-Analysis

Author:
Andrew Shaver
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC)
Abstract:
The world faces a forcible displacement crisis. Across the world, tens of millions of individuals have been forced from their homes and across international boundaries. The causes and consequences of refugee flows are, therefore, the subjects of significant social science inquiry. Unfortunately, historical lack of reliable data on actual refugee flows has significantly limited empirical inferences on these topics. Using data newly released by the United Nations on annual dyadic flows, we replicate twenty-seven studies published in economics and political science journals on the causes and consequences of these flows. We extend fourteen of these. We find that some of the causes of flows described in the literature are less substantively and/or statistically significant than previously reported while others are more. Generally, with some exceptions, we find that previously reported effects of refugees on security conditions are attenuated, suggesting that the literature’s predominant focus on refugees as sources of violent instability may be overstated.
Topic:
Civil War, Terrorism, and Violence
Political Geography:
United States and Global Focus

215. The IMF should enhance the role of SDRs to strengthen the international monetary system

Author:
Edwin M. Truman
Publication Date:
12-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
The special drawing right (SDR), issued by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has the potential to strengthen dramatically the international monetary system. Established in 1969 and allocated twice during its first decade, the SDR was in the institutional closet from 1980 until 2009, when $250 billion in SDRs was allocated to members of the IMF to help address the global financial crisis. In 2021 another $650 billion in SDRs was allocated to help address the coronavirus pandemic. The SDR has proved itself as a crisis instrument. This paper addresses critically the arguments against SDR allocations. It proposes regular annual SDR allocations, along with measures to make the SDR more attractive to critics and measures to build out the SDR system in support of the international monetary system. The paper includes an appendix on the history of the SDR. A second appendix analyzes SDR use following the 2009 and 2021 allocations and finds that contrary to the popular myth, many countries other than low-income members of the IMF benefited directly in multiple ways from those allocations.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Financial Crisis, Finance, and IMF
Political Geography:
Global Focus

216. The World Bank, the IMF, and the GATT/WTO: Which institution most supported trade reform in developing economies?

Author:
Douglas A. Irwin
Publication Date:
12-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
The 1980s and 1990s saw a policy revolution in developing countries in which many highly protected (if not closed) economies were opened to world trade. These reforms were largely undertaken unilaterally, but international economic institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization supported these efforts. This paper examines the ways in which these institutions promoted, or failed to promote, trade policy reform during this pivotal period.
Topic:
Development, World Bank, Reform, Trade, IMF, and WTO
Political Geography:
Global Focus

217. The portfolio of economic policies needed to fight climate change

Author:
Olivier Blanchard, Christian Gollier, and Jean Tirole
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
Climate change poses an existential threat. The authors argue that carbon pricing and green research and development (R&D) support are good economics, but their implementation can be improved. Even if carbon prices are generalized and given more substance, green R&D is still likely to be smaller than needed. Much more money must be spent on it than is now the case, and this money must be properly allocated in order to have an impact. Moreover, done well, other policies, such as standards, bans, and targeted subsidies, can be good economics. But they have often been incoherent and their implementation is delicate. The authors also argue that domestic and international compensation is key to the acceptability of efficient policies. Finally, although a country’s emissions will not materially alter the course of climate change, individual countries can still show the way ahead: They can develop technologies that can be used by other, poorer, countries. They can provide leadership/momentum on global agreements and on the need to fund climate change policies in developing economies.
Topic:
Climate Change, Economy, Green Technology, Carbon Emissions, and Research and Development
Political Geography:
Global Focus

218. 25 years of excess unemployment in advanced economies: Lessons for monetary policy

Author:
Joseph E. Gagnon and Madi Sarsenbayev
Publication Date:
10-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
For about 25 years before the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation was very low and stable in most advanced economies. A little noticed dark side of this impressive achievement is that unemployment rates were almost always higher than needed to keep inflation low. This widespread and persistent policy error arose because of a major flaw in standard macroeconomic models—the use of a linear Phillips curve. This flaw would have been far less costly if central banks had not chosen such a low target for inflation. This paper thus adds to the arguments in favor of a moderately higher inflation target. Even without a higher target, central banks need to use a broader range of economic models and should verify their estimates of the natural rate of unemployment by running the economy hot from time to time in order to see nascent inflationary pressure before throttling back.
Topic:
Economics, Monetary Policy, Unemployment, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Global Focus

219. The WTO and vaccine supply chain resilience during a pandemic

Author:
Chad P. Bown
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
Cross-border supply chains and international trade enabled the manufacturing and delivery of billions of vaccine doses to inoculate the world against COVID-19. At the same time, the pandemic revealed how the World Trade Organization (WTO) must change to become more useful in the face of a public health emergency. This paper describes the market failures—especially on the supply side—justifying the domestic subsidies and contracting arrangements used to accelerate vaccine research and development and to increase the scale of vaccine production to save lives, livelihoods, and economic activity during a pandemic. It highlights tradeoffs associated with the US subsidies and the priority-rated contracts written through the Defense Production Act under Operation Warp Speed. This case study reveals a rich environment in which cross-border supply chains exacerbate input shortages in ways that constrain vaccine production, highlighting the need for the WTO to embrace new forms of international policy coordination for pandemic preparedness and response. As part of a pandemic treaty, the paper proposes a plurilateral agreement on vaccine supply chain resilience that would include novel and enforceable disciplines for export restrictions, provisions to trigger coordinated subsidies across countries to jointly scale up vaccine output- and input-production capacity, and market surveillance initiatives on supply chain transparency.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Vaccine, COVID-19, WTO, and Supply Chains
Political Geography:
Global Focus

220. How carbon tariffs and climate clubs can slow global warming

Author:
Shantayanan Devarajan, Delfin S. Go, Sherman Robinson, and Karen Thierfelder
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
Slowing global warming requires countries to reduce carbon emissions, which imposes costs on their economies. To be effective, most countries must agree collectively to participate (e.g., the Paris Agreement, COP26). However, every country has an incentive not to comply and still reap the benefits of other countries’ actions—a classic free-rider problem. This paper evaluates recent recommendations to use trade policy to solve the free-rider problem associated with climate mitigation strategies. It shows that the European Union’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM tariffs) are effective at offsetting the unfair competitive advantage of noncompliant countries in the markets of compliant countries but have little effect on the trade of noncompliant countries, who can divert trade to other noncompliers. CBAM tariffs alone have little impact on global CO2 emissions. The paper also examines “climate clubs” (coalitions of countries that agree to impose carbon taxes or other equivalent policies and impose punitive tariffs on non-club members to induce them to join the club). It finds that punitive climate club tariffs can be effective in inflicting significant damage on the economies of nonmembers, providing a strong incentive for them to join the club. The paper identifies trade dependence between club and non-club members as an important consideration for the success of a climate club. Club members that are strongly linked to non-club members suffer losses when the club punishes non-club members, which would make them hesitant to impose punitive tariffs on a major nonmember trading partner.
Topic:
Climate Change, Economics, Tariffs, and Carbon Emissions
Political Geography:
Global Focus