This year, for the first time ever, nearly all of the world’s countries are making pledges to help limit future climate change. As of 1 October, 147 countries (representing about 85% of global emissions) have submitted their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions. These pledges, if...

We critically review the Kyoto Protocol and thirteen alternative policy architectures for addressing the threat of global climate change. We employ six criteria to evaluate the policy proposals: environmental outcome, dynamic efficiency, cost effectiveness, equity, flexibility in the presence of...

Using a dynamic model of the control of an infectious disease, we derive the conditions under which eradication will be optimal. When eradication is feasible, the optimal program requires either a low vaccination rate or eradication. A high vaccination rate is never optimal. Under special...

The emission limits in the Kyoto Protocol are too generous. Simply tightening these limits, however, will not make a new climate treaty any more effective at addressing climate change unless the other problems with Kyoto are also addressed. A new climate treaty arrangement must enforce both...

In October 2010, a group of leading thinkers on environmental policy met at the Sustainable Consumption Institute at the University of Manchester for a conference in honour of Nobel Laureate Tom Schelling. This column presents a 10-point guideline for climate change policy co-authored by 26...

This paper explores two different conceptions of how an emerging climate regime might evolve to strengthen incentives for more vigorous cooperation in mitigating global climate change. One is the paradigm that has figured most prominently in negotiations to this point: the establishment of...