Building a Climate Coalition: Aligning Carbon Pricing, Trade, and Development
The recently released interim report of the Global Climate Policy Project Working Group on Climate Coalitions proposes the formation of a climate coalition: a group of countries coordinating on carbon pricing and border adjustments to reduce emissions, align trade and climate goals, and generate fiscal revenue. Read the full report here.
Evaluating the Economic and Environmental Impacts of the Foreign Pollution Fee Act
On April 8, U.S. Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) introduced their latest version of the Foreign Pollution Fee Act. The bill levies a tariff on imports in certain industrial sectors, proportional to the carbon emitted when the good was produced abroad. This research commentary analyzes the new bill and assesses the potential impacts on several economic and environmental outcomes.
Two Wrongs Can Sometimes Make a Right: The Environmental Benefits of Market Power in Oil
Market power reduces equilibrium quantities and distorts production, typically causing welfare losses. However market power may mitigate overproduction from negative externalities. This paper examines this in the global oil market, where OPEC’s market power affects oil production and carbon intensity.
The Price Cap on Russian Oil Exports and the Amassing of the Shadow Fleet
Western governments imposed a price cap on Russian seaborne oil exports using Western services. To evade the policy, Russia developed a “shadow fleet” which uses no such services. In this paper, the authors use a calibrated model driven by this fleet’s expansion to assess various sanctions. While all sanctions reduce the present value of Russia’s profits, they find that the tighter the ceiling and the tighter the enforcement, the less harm sanctions impose.
Pricing Congestion to Increase Traffic: The Case of Bogotá
In September 2021, the city of Bogotá introduced a major market-based reform to its odd-even driving restriction, known as Pico y Placa. Since then, drivers have had the option to pay a daily congestion fee to be exempt from the restriction. A new CEEPR Working Paper finds that while the reform increased traffic, it brought overall benefits.
The economics of clean energy with Namrata Kala
CEEPR faculty member Professor Namrata Kala recently participated in the MIT Energy Initiative's regular podcast, "What If It Works?" As an economist, Namrata has considered how incentivization can alter human behavior and help policies succeed. She leverages this expertise to help us examine how the world’s most populous country, India, is thinking about clean energy and the implications of electrification on its energy demand. She also explores how economics, as well as U.S. policy shifts, might affect their trajectory. Learn more by listening to the full episode at the link below.
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Open UROP position - Summer and Fall terms
CEEPR is currently collecting applications for an open MIT undergraduate position. Wildfires in the U.S. are increasing in frequency and severity, particularly in California. While much research focuses on direct destruction, this study examines how wildfire smoke influences household migration and firm performance. Further details and application instructions can be found at the link below.
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Is the clean energy economy doomed?
Faculty Director Christopher Knittel recently guested on Make Me Smart, a podcast from public radio’s Marketplace and spoke about the reasons some policymakers are reluctant to eliminate the IRA entirely. “The world is switching to electric vehicles, the world is switching to solar and wind, and the less we do domestically, the less capability we build domestically to provide those clean energy resources, the worse off our industries will be in the future.” Listen to the full podcast here.
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Clean Investment
Monitor
The Clean Investment Monitor (CIM) is a joint project of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR) and the Rhodium Group. The CIM tracks public and private investments in climate technologies in the United States. Through this data and analysis, the CIM provides insights into investment trends, the effects of federal and state policies, and on-the-ground progress in the U.S. towards net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.
The CIM covers dozens of different technologies and their input components across all sectors of the economy, including for clean electricity and transportation, building electrification, low-emission industrial production, and carbon management.
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Climate Action
Through Education
The MIT Climate Action Through Education (CATE) program, directed by Professor Christopher R. Knittel, has developed an MIT-informed interdisciplinary, place-based climate change curriculum for U.S. high school teachers in the following core disciplines: History/Social Science, English/Language Arts, Math, and Science.
Curricular materials – labs, units, lessons, projects – will be aligned with Next Generation Science Standards, and MA education standards. The solutions-focused curriculum aims to inform students about the causes and consequences of anthropogenic climate change, while equipping them with the knowledge and sense of agency to contribute to climate mitigation, adaptation and resilience.
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Driving Towards
Seamless Public
EV Charging
Widespread electric vehicle (EV) adoption is critical to confronting climate change – but a lack of sufficient public charging infrastructure is holding many potential EV drivers back. A team of researchers from Harvard and the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research will work to accelerate progress on public EV charging as a gating requirement to achieving widespread EV adoption. The team will contribute by working directly with stakeholders and stakeholder groups to identify barriers to seamless public EV charging, build consensus for solutions, and advance those solutions.
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The Roosevelt
Project
Transitioning the United States economy toward deep decarbonization will have unequally distributed effects, positive and negative, across socio-economic groups, geographies and economic sectors. The concerns of workers and communities adversely affected by the transition must inform the discussion around decarbonization, associated policy changes and institutional development. The goal of the Roosevelt Project is to provide an analytical basis for charting a path to a low carbon economy in a way that promotes high quality job growth, minimizes worker and community dislocation, and harnesses the benefits of energy technologies for regional economic development.
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