The climate crisis was caused by economics, can economics be part of the solution?

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01/06/20 • 37 min

The New York Times called it one of the worst outcomes in a quarter-century of climate negotiations. United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said the international community "lost an important opportunity to show increased ambition on mitigation, adaptation and finance to tackle the climate crisis” at the recent UN Climate Summit in Madrid.

But Harvard Kennedy School Professor Robert Stavins says global climate negotiators still accomplished something important last month at the COP25 conference—because of what they didn't do. Instead of approving lax rules full of loopholes that big polluting countries like Brazil and Australia were, negotiators held the line and pushed off a decision until next year's meeting in Scotland.

Stavins, the A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy & Economic Development and director of both the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements and the Harvard Environmental Economics Program, tells host Thoko Moyo that getting workable economic solutions in place to combat the climate crisis is essential, because fundamentally the crisis was caused by economic activity. Stavins says his latest research shows that both carbon tax and cap-and-trade schemes can work, as long as they are well-designed.

For more on Professor Stavins' thoughts on the COP25 summit and his research, check out his blog: An Economic View of the Environment.

PolicyCast is produced by Ralph Ranalli and Susan Hughes.

For more on Professor Stavins' thoughts on the COP25 summit and his research, check out his blog: An Economic View of the Environment.

PolicyCast is produced by Ralph Ranalli and Susan Hughes.

Previous Episode

Redistricting and democracy: Can we draw the line on gerrymandering?

Harvard Kennedy School Assistant Professor of Public Policy Benjamin Schneer says the drawing of electoral districts is a complex and partisan process that often results in politicians picking their voters instead of the other way around. But it doesn't have to be that way.

Schneer's work explores political representation, elections, and ways to mitigate forces that distort the ability of citizens to communicate their desires to government. His recent research has focused on redistricting, the political process of redrawing state legislative and Congressional districts every 10 years following a Census (the next one will take place in 2020).

Schneer says the recent work by an independent redistricting commission in Arizona has shown that it is possible to make fair and competitive legislative districts without the Gerrymandering that can distort legislative democracy. But the fact that the Arizona process ended up being litigated in from of the US Supreme Court—twice—shows that the debate is heated and ongoing.

Schneer says his current project is working on systems that will allow for fairer results even in states where independent redistricting commissions aren’t politically feasible.

Next Episode

Post-expert democracy: Why nobody trusts elites anymore

Democratic governance expert Archon Fung says that since 2016 we have entered a political dramatically different from the previous 35 years. He calls it a period of “wide aperture, low deference Democracy.”

In simplest terms, it’s an era when a much wider range of ideas and potential policies are being debated and when traditional leaders in politics, media, academia, and culture are increasingly being questioned, pushed aside, and ignored by a distrustful public.

And he says the fate of those leaders and elites is significantly of their own making, because they have supported self-interested policies that have resulted in the largest levels of economic inequality since the Gilded Age and a government that is responsive to the wealthy but not to ordinary citizens.

“The growing of the pie has not been even at all,” Professor Fung tells PolicyCast host Thoko Moyo. “And that causes some significant dissatisfaction in the institutions that are supposed to govern.”

Professor Fung says it’s too early to say whether this era marks our democracy’s demise in favor of authoritarianism, its rebirth as something better, or a state of purgatory where things stay in this “crazy, anxious state for a while.” Some first steps toward avoiding that fate and creating what he calls a “deeper democracy,” he says, include popular mobilization and steps to “create experts and leaders we can really believe in and find trustworthy.”

Professor Fung is based at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, and his research explores policies, practices, and institutions that help make democracy work better.

PolicyCast is produced by Ralph Ranalli and Susan Hughes