Publications

As the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting convenes this month in Copenhagen, Denmark, intellectual property (IP) rights remain a highly contentious issue that threatens the long-term prospects of these negotiations. This note describes an approach that would facilitate the uptake of clean technologies, preserve incentives for privately financed innovation, and allow the Parties to address and move past the issue of IP rights in the UNFCCC negotiations.

With the Copenhagen climate talks finally underway, a CGD survey of 500 development and climate aficionados in 88 countries finds unexpected agreement about what should be done—and important differences between respondents from developed and developing countries about how an agreement should be financed and managed. Jan von der Goltz and CGD president Nancy Birdsall examine the survey results to shed light on some of the ingredients of a successful climate agreement.

CGD senior fellow Kimberly Ann Elliott submitted a written statement for the congressional record following the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee hearing on preference reform. Elliott urges policymakers to consider the special needs of the poorest countries as they debate the future of U.S. trade programs.

Much like 2008, the world rice market seems destined for another price shock, with very aggressive buyin techniques by the Philippines fueling the run-up in prices.

Benjamin Leo, formerly of the U.S. Treasury and National Security Council and a key behind-the-scenes player in the inception and implementation of Multilateral Debt Relief Initiatives, examines the potential risk of renewed debt re-accumulation by countries that have only recently completed the HIPC/MDRI process that was to prevent a repeat of excessive debt accumulation.

In this working paper, the authors shed light on systemic problems of variability and valuation in the Penn World Table GDP estimates that distort cross-country comparisons of the data. They propose creating a new chained series that values all data at PPP prices and makes better use of disaggregated data for different benchmark years to overcome the limitations.

In this paper Arvind Subramanian and co-authors investigate the differential effects of cooperatitve policy action on climate change and find that one size doesn't fit all. Policy instruments should distinguish between low- and high-carbon countries to avoid serious trade consequences.

The paper proposes a new narrative on climate equity that emphasize basic energy needs and the equality of access to energy opportunities rather than emissions. It advocates abandoning the setting of emissions targets and instead developing a framework where all countries contribute to maximizing technology creation and diffusion.