What are the challenges and opportunities for factoring climate action into the UAE’s and Oman’s economic diversification strategies?

Climate change brings both challenges and opportunities for economic growth in oil producing countries, which are highly reliant on oil-export revenues. On one hand, if not managed properly, climate change affects both non-oil and oil-based economic sectors. Non-oil economic sectors such as agriculture, food security, water, fisheries, tourism, and infrastructure are already negatively affected by […]

Responding to climate mitigation policymaking as a complex policy problem: the role of approach

COVID-19 has thrown the interconnected and complex systemic nature of our global society into stark relief. It has also sparked many questions within the international climate change community of practice around the lessons of the pandemic for the climate crisis. In a paper for Climate Policy with Dr Brett Cohen, ‘Approaching climate mitigation policymaking in […]

Carbon Lock-in and development in Latin America and the Caribbean: risks and opportunities for recovery from Covid-19

Countries around the world are thinking about how to address the widespread repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic after the urgent and necessary short-term health response. Extraordinary resources are being made available by governments to relaunch economies and to support vulnerable segments of the society. These mid- and long-term stimulus packages hold both the potential of […]

Top 10 Climate Policy Papers published in 2020 by downloads

We are pleased to announce our top ten downloaded papers so far this year (up to 30 June), from among those published in 2020. Congratulations to all the featured authors! Please check the Climate Policy website to view all our papers, and for the latest download figures. Article Title Authors Downloads in 2020* A factor […]

Addressing loss and damage through Parametric Insurance Schemes

We know that climate change causes more extreme weather – such as longer and more frequent droughts and more powerful hurricanes – and we know that this creates havoc in the societies affected. Risk pooling is amongst the measures that have been pointed to as a way of warding off the consequences of climate change. […]

Even ‘climate progressive’ nations fall far short of adopting Paris-compliant pathways

With Covid-19 dominating the news, it’s easy to forget the greater threat posed by climate change. Whilst recent months have seen a fall in global emissions, we’re still dumping tens of billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, increasing the concentration of CO2 and hence the level of warming. The Covid-19 crisis offers […]

Giving climate policy advice that makes a difference: targeting government agencies

The Climate Strategies and Climate Policy Blog is full to the brim with blog posts providing important scientific insights on how to fight climate change. Why does so little of this vast knowledge about what to do ultimately make it into real policy? In our recent outlook piece in Climate Policy, we argue that scientists […]

The Green Rebound: Thoughts on mobilising the COVID responses for climate action

Back in late March, when the corona crisis had finally forced us all from our offices and into our homes, Climate Strategies gathered our extraordinary membership of distinguished researchers (virtually of course) for a series of discussions on the “Green Rebound”. With the topic so well examined, and with so many opinions, reports, think pieces, […]

Consequences of adding ‘loss and damage’ as a third pillar of international climate change law

‘So what is your biggest concern going into Paris?’ Rolling Stone Magazine asked then US Secretary of State John Kerry in the run-up to COP 21 in Paris. Kerry answered: ‘I think [resolving the division between the] developed-and-developing-country piece is important. I think loss and damage will be complicated.’ John Kerry was indeed right, but […]

Usual and unusual suspects: what network analysis can tell us about climate policy integration

In one of the key scenes of the legendary film Casablanca (1942), Captain Louis Renault orders his police officers to “round up the usual suspects” instead of arresting the culprit, Rick Blaine. Those of us concerned with climate change are frequently doing the same. Even though policy action on adaptation or mitigation is not a […]