[The New York Times ] Michael Greenstone and Cass Sunstein: Last week, Donald J. Trump’s transition team sent a startling questionnaire to the Department of Energy. Among other things, the questionnaire asked for the names of all employees and contractors who attended meetings of the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Carbon, as well as all emails associated with those meetings, and the department’s “opinion” on the underlying issues — a request it essentially refused.

HEEP Faculty Fellow Joe Lassiter explains in a TED talk video the importance of pursuing new nuclear options to reduce carbon emissions, while at the same time lifting people in the developing world out of poverty. Lassiter argues that investment in new nuclear alternatives could compete...

[The New York Times ]...“The good news is that on its own, the U.S. economy has become less carbon intensive, and that trend will continue overall,” said Robert N. Stavins, the director of the environmental economics program at Harvard University. The bad news, he said, is that markets alone will not lower emissions enough to offset the worst impacts of global warming.

HEEP Pre-Doctoral Fellow alum Hunt Allcott has been granted tenure as an Associate Professor of Economics at New York University. Professor Allcott is an applied microeconomist who studies topics in environmental and energy economics, industrial organization, public economics, behavioral economics, and development microeconomics.... Read more about Hunt Allcott Granted Tenure at New York University

[NPR radio interview with Robert N. Stavins] Delegates from nearly 200 countries are in Morocco this week to work out how to implement the Paris Climate Agreement. That's the historic accord under which countries including the U.S. pledged to limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and to help poorer countries transition away from fossil fuel.

But, with the election of Donald Trump last week, some environmentalists are worried the U.S. will backtrack.

[Robert Stavins' blog] Those of you who have read my previous essay at this blog, “This is Not a Time for Political Neutrality” (October 9, 2016), know that my greatest concerns about a Trump presidency (then a possibility, now a certainty), were not limited to environmental policy, but rather were “about what a Trump presidency would mean for my country and for the world in realms ranging from economic progress to national security to personal liberty,” based on his “own...

[The New York Times ] Robert N. Stavins: Donald J. Trump once tweeted that “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive.” Twitter messages may not be clear signs of likely public policies, but Mr. Trump followed up during the campaign with his “America First Energy Plan,” which would rescind all of President Obama’s actions on climate change.

[The Sacramento Bee ] Lawrence Goulder and Robert Stavins: This is a critical time for California’s climate policies. Recently, Gov. Jerry Brown achieved his hope of extending California’s action beyond 2020, the termination date of Assembly Bill 32. Whereas AB 32 called for reducing the state’s greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, the newly signed Senate Bill 32 and AB 197 mandate an additional 40 percent reduction by 2030.

[NPR ]...CURWOOD: So, what are the key elements of Secretary Clinton's climate and energy platform?

ALDY: Well, I think the first thing is that she recognizes climate change as a serious threat, that it's important that we bring resources to deal with the risk posed by climate change -- to make our economy more resilient to the threats posed by climate change, to make investments in clean energy that will both create jobs and create manufacturing.... Read more about Breaking Down Clinton’s Climate Approach

[Harvard Gazette ]...Robert Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government, was awarded funding for a project called “Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions: International Cooperation in East Asia.” The project will build on previous collaboration between the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, a University-wide initiative based in the Harvard Kennedy School, and the National Center for Climate Change Strategy Research and International Cooperation (NCSC) in Beijing.

[Robert Stavins' blog] I have been writing essays at this blog for over seven years, and throughout that time, through perhaps 100 more-or-less-monthly essays, I have tried very hard to keep politics at bay, and to view each and every issue I discussed from a politically neutral, yet analytical economic perspective.  But I find it difficult to remain neutral in the current U.S. Presidential election cycle.

Since before the summer, I had resolved to write today’s essay, but I decided to wait until one month before the November U.S. election to post it, simply because I thought...

[NPR ]...STAVINS: Well, actually if I had to choose one word to describe the Paris agreement, it would be the one you just used, Steve. I would say it's “pragmatic”. It's not the type of aspirational agreement that the Kyoto protocol was. It is pragmatic. It is based upon what's politically feasible in each of the countries.

[The Hill ]...Most officials expected the climate deal, negotiated in December in Paris, to take effect no earlier than next year. A similar international climate accord, the Kyoto Protocol, wasn’t ratified for five years.

But the specter of a Trump presidency appears to have spurred the deal along.

“His threat stimulated this rapid series of ratifications — China, the USA, Europe, and many others,” Robert Stavins, the director of the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, wrote in an email.... Read more about UN Makes Power Play Against Trump

[Robert Stavins' blog] The past year has been a crucial time in international climate negotiations.  In December, 2015, in Paris, negotiators established an agreement on the next round of targets and actions to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which was signed in 1997 and will effectively close down in 2020.  In Paris, negotiators set up a new and meaningful agreement for multinational action through individual country...

Research by HEEP Pre-Doctoral Fellow Jisung Park, on the effects of heat on student test performance, was described in an article in The New York Times, “Temperatures Rise, and We’re Cooked.” Park found that students taking the New York State Regent exam on a 90 degree day have a 12 percent greater chance of failing than on a 72...