Including Animal-to-Plant Protein Shifts in Climate Change Mitigation Policy: A Proposed Three-step Strategy

In my new article published in Climate Policy, I outline the need for strong and rapid greenhouse gas reductions from the agriculture sector, and propose a three-step strategy for including animal to plant sourced protein shifts in climate policy. The article covers five main aspects: The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions strongly and rapidly […]

What Drives Adoption of Clean Technologies in Developing Countries?

The 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report (SR1.5) finds that limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide to fall by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching net zero emissions by 2050. Such reduction would require “rapid and far-reaching transitions in energy, land, urban and infrastructure (including […]

Governance of Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage

Accounting, Rewarding, and the Paris Agreement In a newly published article in Climate Policy, I explore some governance issues associated with negative emission technologies, taking bioenergy combined with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) as the case at hand. The article covers three main topics: Accounting for negative emissions; Rewarding negative emissions (and incentives for industry […]

Learning From the Past to Bring the Paris Agreement Climate Goals Closer Within Reach

The Talanoa Dialogue in the UNFCCC [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] negotiations extends a broad invitation to share low-carbon stories on how to move from ‘where do want to go?’ to ‘how do we get there?’. The aim is to ratchet up ambition in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to bring them in […]

National Action on Climate Change Now Covers 89% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions. How has this been Achieved?

Our new study published by Climate Policy finds that national climate action has spread rapidly, and that this spread is strongly coincident with landmark international agreements. Following the Paris Agreement, 89% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (76% if not counting the US) are covered by pledged national GHG reduction targets, a near universal coverage. […]

The Battle of Economic Structure and China’s Future Carbon Emissions

For global climate change, a big challenge is that China (specifically Mainland China as referred to in this blog post) has been rapidly growing to become the world’s largest energy consumer and CO2 emitter, now equivalent to the combined size of the United States and the European Union. A bigger challenge is that China is […]

Assessing the US Retreat from the Paris Agreement: Backtracking to Kyoto?

Perhaps the most widely debated event in global climate policy since the Paris Agreement’s adoption in 2015 was the United States’ decision in June 2017 to withdraw from the treaty, pending possible re-engagement under different terms. When the announcement was on the cards, some commentators argued that the US would be ‘better out than in’, […]

Fairness in the Eyes of Parties to the Paris Agreement: What Explains Divergences?

The question of how to differentiate efforts fairly has always been central and controversial in UN climate negotiations. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement include different formulations and compromises relating to the distribution of efforts between parties. In a new study published in Climate Policy, we […]

Climate Finance: Time to Know Who Gives What

As the first climate change negotiations after December’s landmark Paris Agreement open in Bonn this week, controversies around levels of funding for poorer countries to fight climate change may re-emerge. The absence of internationally-agreed accounting rules for climate finance makes it harder to establish whether promises are being met and which countries are doing their part. Most debates […]

How Transitional Justice Can Help Climate Negotiations

Transitional justice – a theory and practice enabling purposeful transitions from periods of deep injustices into more peaceful regimes – was probably not on anyone’s mind during the last days of COP21, the UN conference that led to the Paris Agreement in December 2015. However, Paragraph 52 in the Decision text – which specifically excludes liability by developed countries […]