Climate Change

This paper introduces and illustrates fCPR (Forest Conservation Performance Rating), a system of color-coded ratings for tropical forest conservation performance that can be implemented for local areas, countries, regions, and the entire pan-tropics.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is leading a UN initiative to deploy sustainable energy for all. Ahead of the June Rio+20 summit, Nigel Purvis and Abigail Jones highlight what the United States can do to help fulfill his vision.

The authors find that the value of discovered reserves is high relative to the costs of exploration and that many countries can continue to generate resource rents far longer than indicated by current reserve estimates. In some cases, public measures to encourage private exploration may be...

Nancy Birdsall and Michele de Nevers propose a system for climate adaptation finance that builds off the lessons learned in development assistance.

This data set includes the data and programs needed to replicate the analysis in Working Paper 282, From REDD to Green: A Global Incentive System to Stop Tropical Forest Clearing by David Wheeler, Dan Hammer, and Robin Kraft.

This data set includes the data and programs needed to replicate the analysis in Working Paper 280, Economic Dynamics and Forest Clearing: A Spatial Econometric Analysis for Indonesia by David Wheeler, Dan Hammer, Robin Kraft, Susmita Dasgupta, and Brian Blankespoor.

This data set includes the data and programs needed to replicate the analysis in Forest Clearing in the Pantropics: December 2005–August 2011 by David Wheeler, Robin Kraft, and Dan Hammer.

This report summarizes recent trends in large-scale tropical forest clearing identified by FORMA (Forest Monitoring for Action). FORMA produces indicators that track monthly changes in the number of 1-sq.-km. tropical forest parcels that have experienced clearing with high probability. This report...

This paper develops and illustrates a prototype incentive system for promoting rapid reduction of forest clearing in tropical countries.

David Wheeler and co-authors use detailed monthly data from FORMA (Forest Monitoring for Action) to determine the factors that contribute to deforestation in Indonesia. Their results highlight the importance of incorporating economic dynamics into financial compensation arrangements for forest...

The Commitment to Development Index ranks 22 of the world’s richest countries on their dedication to policies that benefit the 5.5 billion people living in poorer nations. Moving beyond standard comparisons of foreign aid volumes, the CDI quantifies a range of rich-country policies that affect...

David Wheeler estimates the destructive potential of releasing the carbon now sequestered in Alberta's oil sands.

Nancy Birdsall and Arvind Subramanian identify a fair deal on climate change for developed and developing countries by focusing not on equitable emissions quotas but on fair access to energy services.

These files accompany CGD Working Paper 259, "Fair Shares: Crediting Poor Countries for Carbon Mitigation." They include the Stata code used to produce the results reported in the paper, the supporting data, and definitions of variable names in the database.

New research by David Wheeler shows that developing countries have borne their fair share of global mitigation expenditures relative to per-capita income. The challenge now is for rich countries to do the same.

In this working paper, the authors examine four categories of existing resource-mobilization options and recommend which might best be used to finance global public goods.

Developed countries have promised to mobilize $100 billion per year to help developing countries combat climate change, a commitment that will require substantial capital from private investors. The authors of this working paper propose a public-private green venture fund (GVF) to promote the...

Senior fellow David Wheeler quantifies and makes available in this dataset the vulnerability of 233 countries to three major effects of climate change (weather-related disasters, sea-level rise, and reduced agricultural productivity).

Senior fellow David Wheeler quantifies and makes available in an accompanying database the vulnerability of 233 countries to three major effects of climate change (weather-related disasters, sea-level rise, and reduced agricultural productivity) and develops a methodology for donors and other to...

In this paper Kevin Ummel provides high-resolution estimates of the global potential and cost of solar power technologies while identifying deployment patterns that minimize the cost of greenhouse gas abatement.

This paper asks why carbon regulation in the U.S. Congress has failed to pass while the EU has succeeded in implementing carbon regulation.

The Commitment to Development Index (CDI) ranks 22 of the world’s richest countries on their dedication to policies that benefit the five billion people living in poorer nations. Moving beyond standard comparisons of foreign aid volumes, the CDI quantifies a range of rich country policies that...

CGD fellow David Wheeler explains the role of economics in population policy and how it effects carbon emissions reduction in developing countries.

This essay explores how demographic factors affect infrastructure and the choices policymakers should make concerning infrastructure development.

The United States ranked 17th in the 2009 Commitment to Development Index with strengths in trade and security but weaknesses in aid and environment. This CGD Note describes how the United States could boost its score.

While China and India plan to use coal to meet energy demands, Kevin Ummel notes the incredible potential for concentrating solar power (CSP) in the region, using spatial data to identify areas for solar power growth.

Scarce resources. Climate change. Population growth. Rising food prices. Feeding the world’s hungry will require a giant leap in agricultural innovation. In a new working paper, senior fellow Kimberly Elliott explores how advance market commitments could pull the private sector into producing for...

The authors address several questions relevant to international discussion about climate adaptation: How will climate change alter the incidence of extreme weather events, and how will their impact be distributed geographically? How will future socioeconomic development, notably an increased...

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...

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...

In this paper, we introduce FORMA (Forest Monitoring for Action), a prototype system for monitoring real-time deforestation from publicly available satellite data at a resolution of one square kilometer. Maps of the data showing probable areas of deforestation will be available on Google Earth and...

The authors suggest a new approach assessing carbon taxes on imports to address the concerns from high-income countries about the effect of taxes on competition without damaging trade from developing countries.

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...

As temperatures rise this century, massive tropical storm surges and growing populations may collide in disasters of unprecedented size. CGD senior fellow David Wheeler and co-authors explore the implications for 84 developing countries, providing new data for 577 cyclone-vulnerable coastal cities...

What do developing countries want from global climate negotiations? A new CGD working paper by Jan von der Goltz outlines the negotiating stances of the developing world’s major emitters ahead of December talks in Copenhagen. It shows that developing countries have floated compromises on key...

This CGD Brief, based on the book Africa's Private Sector by Vijaya Ramachandran, Alan Gelb, and Manju Kedia Shah, shows how investing in infrastructure and improving access to education can help bring about a broad-based business class in Africa.

Senior fellow David Wheeler and Kevin Ummel argue for rapid, very large-scale deployment of existing solar thermal technology. Using maps of solar radiation and project finance calculations, they show that with modest subsidies solar power generated in North Africa and the Middle East could meet...

The White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President shows how modest changes in U.S. policies could greatly improve the lives of poor people in developing countries, thus fostering greater stability, security, and prosperity globally and at home. Center for Global...

The next president can secure a place in history by mobilizing America to confront climate change, while starting a clean energy revolution that will strengthen American security and create the next wave of economic growth. The president should seize this opportunity because climate change presents...

While the precise contribution of biofuels to surging food prices is difficult to know, policies promoting production of the current generation of biofuels are not achieving their stated objectives of increased energy independence or reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Reaching the congressionally...

Lord Nicholas Stern delivers the Third Annual Richard H. Sabot Lecture, June 26, 2008.

In November 2007 CGD’s Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA) provided the first global database on CO2 emissions from the world’s 50,000 power plants and the firms that own them. CARMA was widely welcomed as a tool for public education and as an important first step toward reliable, consistent...

How committed are the world's richest countries to the development of Africa, the world's poorest continent? Rich countries are usually compared on how much foreign aid they give as a percentage of their GDP, but helping Africa involves much more than aid. CGD's Commitment to Development Index has...

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for a revolutionary change in the world's energy mix. So why is the World Bank conducting business as usual? This new working paper by CGD senior fellow David Wheeler focuses on the bank's latest proposed venture, a huge coal-fired plant to be fueled by the...

As a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, developed countries have an indisputable responsibility to address global warming. But the developing country argument that, as blameless victims of climate change they should be unfettered by emissions regulations, is wrong. In this working paper,...

Nearly everybody agrees that cutting greenhouse gas emissions to save the planet will require market-based instruments such as carbon taxes or cap-and-trade. But so far there is no reliable source of data to support such a system. In this new working paper, CGD senior fellow David Wheeler, who...

Each year since 2003, the Commitment to Development Index (CDI) has ranked 21 rich countries on their dedication (or not!) to policies that benefit the five billion people living in poor countries. The CDI moves beyond simple comparisons of aid funding and in so doing embodies the mission of CGD,...

In this working paper CGD research fellow David Roodman explains how the four biggest developing countries -- Brazil, Russia, India and China, a group Goldman Sachs dubbed the "BRICs" -- stack up to their rich-country counterparts on the environment component of the annual Commitment to Development...

This CGD brief summarizes the results of the 2007 Commitment to Development Index (CDI), which ranks 21 of the world's richest countries on their dedication to policies that benefit the five billion people living in poorer nations. The Netherlands comes in first on the 2007 CDI on the strength of...

This CGD Brief, based on Global Warming and Agriculture: Impact Estimates by Country, by senior fellow William Cline, explores the implications of global warming for world agriculture, with special attention to China, India, Brazil, and the poor countries of the tropical belt in Africa and Latin...

While the threat of global warming is increasingly accepted, little attention has been paid to the likely impact at the country level, especially in the developing world. In this new book, Bill Cline, a joint senior fellow at CGD and the Peterson Institute for International Economics, provides...

The April 5, 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report predicts that droughts and floods will become more frequent and severe as a result of global warming. In this CGD Note senior fellow David Wheeler shows that citizens of poor countries are much more likely than citizens in...

The Commitment to Development Index (CDI), which ranks 21 countries across six policy areas, is widely seen as the most comprehensive and substantive measure of rich country policies towards development. In response to requests from other would-be index builders, CDI architect David Roodman...

Many poor countries, especially in Africa, will miss the MDGs by a large margin. But neither African inaction nor a lack of aid will necessarily be the reason. Instead, responsibility for near-certain ‘failure’ lies with the overly-ambitious goals themselves and unrealistic expectations placed...