PAST EVENT
Friday, November 06, 2009
9:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Washington, DC
President Barack Obama is scheduled to arrive in Tokyo on November 12, beginning his first trip to Asia as president. He will also travel to China, South Korea and Singapore, where he will take part in meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. On November 6, the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies and the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings hosted a discussion of President Obama’s upcoming trip and the issues he is likely to face. Read More
PAST EVENT
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
3:30 PM to 5:00 PM
Washington, DC
As attention to U.S. climate legislation has been increasing on Capitol Hill, Brookings hosted a discussion on a new series of papers on U.S. climate policy design. These papers acknowledge the complexity inherent in climate policy; explain the fundamental challenges involved in addressing a particular set of design features; and suggest a credible path forward, calling attention to tradeoffs where they exist. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Charles K. Ebinger and Govinda V. Avasarala, November 03, 2009, The Brookings Institution
In December, the 15th Conference of Parties will attempt to reach an agreement on new international climate change and emissions regulations. Charles Ebinger and Govinda Avasarala note that any agreement is likely to use a plethora of technologies which many nations do not have access to, and they propose solutions to the intellectual property rights issues involved. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Urjit R. Patel, November 02, 2009, The Brookings Institution
There is an emerging consensus among governments that aggressive climate change mitigation would be desirable, though they remain divided about how the associated burden should be shared. Urjit Patel argues that a burden sharing criterion which involves emissions permit allocation to each developing country would be a fair deal and discusses how this would affect India. Read More
PAST EVENT
Friday, October 30, 2009
9:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Washington, DC
On October 30, the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at Brookings and the Slavic Research Center at Hokkaido University will host experts from Japan and the United States for a conference looking at nuclear energy and nuclear nonproliferation. Topics will include trends in international nuclear markets, the U.S. approach to nuclear energy and the future of nuclear nonproliferation. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Adele Morris, October 26, 2009, The Brookings Institution
A cap-and-trade system of the sort envisioned by the current generation of Congressional proposals would create a new market in carbon allowances worth potentially hundreds of billions of dollars. In this paper, Adele Morris discusses the likely distributional implications of a U.S. cap-and-trade system and how policymakers could manage these implications by altering the way in which allowances or allowance revenues are distributed throughout the broader economy. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Carolyn Fischer and Richard Morgenstern, October 26, 2009, The Brookings Institution
A number of climate policy observers and U.S. policymakers have expressed concerns about the implications of climate policy for the U.S. industrial base. In this paper, Carolyn Fischer and Richard Morgenstern show that specific concerns about industrial competitiveness and emissions leakage could be realistically addressed in the context of a cap-and-trade system without unduly distorting the incentives that are essential to realizing an economically efficient outcome. Read More
PAST EVENT
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
9:00 AM to 11:00 AM
Washington, DC
On October 13, the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program hosted a panel discussion around how to best prepare and support metropolitan regions in the development of integrated blueprint plans for sustainable growth. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Robert Puentes and Adie Tomer, October 08, 2009, The Brookings Institution
Robert Puentes and Adie Tomer assess metropolitan air travel trends over the past two decades. They find that most travel is consolidated within a select group of 26 metropolitan areas, which contribute to the country’s highest volume corridors and produce the worst on-time performance. Their findings reveal serious implications for the country’s aviation infrastructure as passenger volumes are predicted to grow in the coming years. Read More
VIDEO
Robert Puentes, October 07, 2009
While air travel has made the globe and the nation more accessible, simply flying from one state to the next is often fraught with delayed flights, runway congestion and a host of other problems. Robert Puentes, an author of a new report on air travel trends, says that their report findings can help policymakers address critical issues affecting the nation’s transportation infrastructure.
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Bryan K. Mignone, September 17, 2009, The Brookings Institution
Concerns about the economic costs of climate policy and the potential for volatility in the future carbon market have led to a proliferation of possible mechanisms to mitigate these concerns. Bryan Mignone shows how a coherent "cost containment" policy could be constructed by considering two key substantive objectives – price stability and cost viability – and then tailoring policy instruments to meet these objectives. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Craig Pirrong, September 17, 2009, The Brookings Institution
Craig Pirrong writes that current legislative attempts to regulate derivatives trading in the climate and energy context are severely misguided. While arguing that the ex post enforcement regime should be strengthened to deter price manipulation, he suggests that overly restrictive clearing and exchange requirements will dramatically increase the costs of managing carbon price risk. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Bryan K. Mignone, September 17, 2009, The Brookings Institution
Binding greenhouse gas emissions targets are the backbone of any cap-and-trade system, but the appropriate stringency of domestic reductions remains an unresolved issue in US legislation. In this paper, Bryan Mignone shows how available scientific information could be coupled with a variety of judgments about climate risk and international burden-sharing to yield a plausible range of domestic cap-and-trade targets. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Kemal Derviş, July 23, 2009, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the Global Environment
Kemal Derviş testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on America’s critical role in supporting climate change adaptation in the world’s most vulnerable communities. Derviş stressed that although global economies are facing serious financial challenges, time is of the essence to protect those most affected. He provided recommendations to enact globally acceptable and enforceable policies to tackle climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Bryan K. Mignone, Matthew D. Hurteau, Yihsu Chen and Brent Sohngen, July 10, 2009, The Brookings Institution
One controversial issue in the larger cap-and-trade debate is the proper use and certification of carbon offsets related to changes in land management. Bryan Mignone, Matthew Hurteau, Yihsu Chen and Brent Sohngen show how reversal risk associated with such instruments could be properly internalized in a crediting framework and how this framework itself could be used to manage prices in the future carbon market. Read More