Recent climate assessments have stressed two key messages. First, to avert irreversible damage from climate change, ambitious measures need to be taken not just sometime –implementation needs to start immediately. Second, as investments in cleaner sources of energy and innovative modes of transportation become mainstream, we must start actively terminating the use of carbon dioxide-emitting […]

Transformation is a term we often hear. It highlights the deep changes required in the organization of economics, technology and society if humanity is to live with a changing climate and continue to thrive. But what does transformation mean? What or who is to transformation, and who decides?  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change defines […]

From 2 to 13 December 2019, the international community will meet for the 25th Conference of the Parties (COP25) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Madrid, Spain, under the Presidency of Chile. As with previous COPs, this will involve an intense international negotiations across a wide range of issues. However, there […]

Equity is important when we take stock of action on climate change. Equity and ambition go together, because the climate is a global commons. The temptation is to ‘free ride’, but if you know that others are doing their fair share, you will also be more likely to push a little harder. At least that […]

How can transformative policies be designed and implemented across sector boundaries? Scholars have compared the quest for policy coordination and coherence with the quest for the philosopher’s stone. This is especially true for national climate policy making, since integrating all sectors really is the key: no sector remains untouched by the impacts of climate change […]

US President Donald Trump has claimed that environmental and climate policy were to blame for the decline of U.S. coal – or in his words: “Regulations that shut down hundreds of coal-fired power plants and block the construction of new ones — how stupid is that?”. After 1.5 years in office he analyzed, in summer […]

In many jurisdictions worldwide, CO2 emissions from electricity generation are covered by an emission trading system (ETS), while renewable electricity generation receives public subsidies. This is the case in many European countries, in some US states, in South Korea and in some Chinese provinces and cities.  As long as CO2 emissions are determined by the […]

At the recent UN Climate Action Summit in New York, world leaders were reminded of the urgent task they face in decarbonising their economies—and the dire consequences of failing to do so.  The especially urgent task of phasing out coal was a central theme of the conference. It was highlighted by the UN Secretary General […]

In the preamble to the Paris Agreement the parties emphasize “the intrinsic relationship that climate change actions, responses and impacts have with equitable access to sustainable development and eradication of poverty”. Coupling emission targets to development priorities is now part of mainstream climate policy debates as well as of international negotiations. But African NDCs (Nationally […]