Event Description
For 35 years, climate negotiators have focused on an approach that has failed to achieve the objectives they say must be met. This lecture will explain why this approach has failed, and why an alternative approach would succeed better.
This alternative differs from the main UN negotiations by focusing on sectors rather than economy-wide measures, on technology-fuel switching rather than emission reductions, and on global systemic change rather than national action. Though "lock-in" makes even small reductions in emissions costly and difficult to enforce within a treaty, increasing returns to the adoption of a new technology-fuel combination makes switching a "tipping game" in which enforcement is “built in.” Switching treaties need only specify the new technology-fuel combination; incorporate trade measures and/or R&D funding to bolster increasing returns, where necessary; and provide the “big push” needed to assure universal adoption.
Event Information
Free and open to the public; registration required. For more information, please email Melissa Vargas at [email protected].
Hosted by the Center for Political Economy at Columbia University.
