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ESD Overview | Research | People | Events | Publications
Environment & Sustainable Development
Climate Change
Projects | People | Publications
Climate Change
Sponsors: AVINA Foundation, CAER II
Countries: Global
Objective:
The Environment and Sustainable Development program at CID is exploring growth and climate change in a global context. The research deals with the impact on climate from economic growth, particularly from growth in the developing countries.
Methodology:
Earlier research has utilized economic theory and analysis to bear on the problem and control of climate change. CID researchers argued that efforts to control climate change will require substantial investment in public goods as it is not reasonable to expect most of the necessary investments to be provided by market forces. Furthermore, a separate study presented extensive and rich empirical evidence on the probable future path of global emissions of gases believed to be leading to climate change. This methodology results in flows of compensation from the temperate zone to the tropical zone and, in general, from rich countries to poor ones. These studies, sponsored primarily by the CAER II project, were presented at the conference DA21: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Assistance and Development, which took place at Harvard University on September 30 and October 1, 1999. To read the transcription of this presentation by Theodore Panayotou and Jeffrey Sachs, click here.
The preceding research found strong evidence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between income per capita and emissions of the troubling gases per capita. This generated a third paper. The relationship has been dubbed an Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) on account of its resemblance to the hypothesis of the economist Simon Kuznets regarding the pattern of behavior of income per capita and income inequality during development. Econometric methods and long time series (125 years) were employed to test whether economic structural transformations are not, in fact, the cause of the EKC.
The latest study on climate change and development investigates the implications of a so-called Kuznets curve for CO2 emissions. The hypothesis is that this path of carbonization and decarbonization is a result of the structural transformation that takes place in an economy as it develops. The hypothesis was tested using a unique dataset with information on income, population and emissions for seventeen advanced countries for the period of 1870-1994, as well as capital stock figures for six countries over the same time period.
Results:
The findings support the hypothesis of the inverted U-shaped relationship between CO2 emissions and income. Another finding is that international trade increases the CO2 emissions per capita at earlier stages of development and reverses itself at later stages of development, following more or less the same pattern as the income-emissions relationship.
The findings suggest that mitigation and adaptation investments are
relatively more valuable: they are needed sooner and should not be
discounted as heavily as current forecasts may suggest. Second, technologies
intended to allow more rapid decarbonization are likely to be most useful if
they take into account the sectoral shifts that accompany economic growth.
The confirmation of the ecological transition, analogous to the democratic
transition, means that the shift from agriculture to industry is most costly
in terms of CO2. Thus, research into clean technologies for this level of
development may be relatively more valuable. Finally, the benefits of
"leapfrogging" investments (those investments that allow a developing
country to jump directly to sophisticated modes of production) have global
benefits that have not been fully appreciated.
Projects | People | Publications
Faculty
Theodore Panayotou
Collaborating Faculty
Jeffrey Sachs, Colombia University Earth Institute
Researcher
Alix Peterson Zwane, University of California - Berkley
Projects |
People |
Publications
Panayotou, Theodore, Jeffrey Sachs, Alix Peterson Zwane. "Compensation for ‘Meaningful Participation’ in Climate Change Control: A Modest Proposal and Empirical Analysis." Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 10.1006/jeem.2001.1189. (2001)
Panayotou, Theodore, Jeffrey Sachs, Alix Peterson. "Developing Countries and the Control of Climate Change: Empirical Evidence." CAER II Discussion Paper No. 45. (1999)
Sachs, Jeffrey, Theodore Panayotou, Alix Peterson. "Developing Countries and the Control of Climate Change: A Theoretical Perspective and Policy Implications." CAER II Discussion Paper No. 44. (1999)
Sachs, Jeffrey, Theodore Panayotou, Alix Peterson Zwane. "Is the Environmental Kuznets Curve Driven by Structural Change? What Extended Time Series May Imply for Developing Countries." CAER II Discussion Paper No. 80. (2000)
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Copyright
© 2007 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Last revised 10/31/2007