The Conference of the Parties (COP) has proven a valuable outlet to advance the climate agenda. The combination of high media coverage, extremely high expectations set by influential environmentalists, and unanimity rules has, however, started to limit its effectiveness. Technical issues can...

According to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, global collective action is needed to stabilize "greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous [our emphasis] anthropogenic interference with the climate system." The Framework Convention thus...

We model countries' choice of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as a dynamic game. Emissions generate immediate benefits to the emitting country but also increase atmospheric GHG concentrations that negatively affect present and future welfare of all countries. Because there are no international...

Consider a situation in which countries anticipate an international environmental agreement (IEA) to be in effect sometime in the future. What is the impact of the future IEA on current emissions after its announcement? We show that the answer to this question is ambiguous. We examine four types...

We examine the formation of multilateral, hub-and-spoke and bilateral international R&D strategic alliances (overlapping climate clubs) to reduce CO2 emissions. R&D provision in clubs produces two types of positive externalities: a global public good (i.e., reduction of CO2 emissions) and...

The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement fall short of the abatement needed to reach the 2°C target. Emissions trading could be a "costless" means to reduce the ambition gap if countries used their gains from trade for additional abatement. However, this requires...