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Views from the Center

CGD experts offer ideas and analysis to improve international development policy. Also check out our Global Health blog and US Development Policy blog.

 

May 17, 2013

Is a US Carbon Tax Hopeless – Forever?

Recently I participated in a roundtable on the future of carbon markets at the Center for American Progress. The discussion, co- sponsored by Climate Advisers, was co-chaired by former U.S. senator Tom Daschle and former EPA administrator Carol Browner, and included CAP chair John Podesta. Jim Kim, the president of the World Bank, made opening remarks.  In other words, the participants included lots of insiders who know a thing or two about how Washington works—and doesn’t.

Nancy Birdsall
December 20, 2010

Climate: Is a Big Technology Push Really Enough?

I’ve been mulling over this problem ever since I finished this paper with Arvind Subramanian. We conclude that to deal with the climate change threat to human well-being and livelhoods as we know them today requires an extraordinary technological revolution – not just reducing carbon content but completely eliminating it, i.e. completely severing the link between burning fossil fuel and generating energy.

Nancy Birdsall
October 20, 2009

Depressing News on Rich-World Climate Change Attitudes

Development advocates hoping for an equitable as well as efficient global agreement on climate change ought to be deeply depressed about the results of a recent FT/Harris poll. What is depressing is the way the question was framed (and that does matter): “Do you agree that, since China is the biggest carbon emitter, it should cut its emissions the most?” In most G-7 countries including the U.S., more than 60 percent of respondents agreed.

Nancy Birdsall
October 13, 2009

Graham-Kerry Initiative Boosts Climate Legislation -- But Repeats Threat to Trade

In a surprise New York Times op-ed last weekend, Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and John Kerry (D-MA) announced a joint initiative on climate change.

The proposal mixes the good (I am glad it finally spells out that only carbon capture and storage turns coal into “clean coal”) with the bad. Still, it is welcome news that the Senate may finally be able to “count to sixty” and pass some kind of legislation to reduce emissions.

Jan von der Goltz

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