With its size, economy and stature as the world’s largest democracy, India should play the lead role for G77 nations at COP 28: Robert N. Stavins
Robert N. Stavins is the A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy and Economic Development at Harvard Kennedy School.
Speaking to Srijana Mitra Das, he discusses emerging directions at the COP 28 environmental summit:
Q. Could you outline your work at the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP) event?
A. I’ve been attending the annual COP summit for over 15 years where we highlight our research and outreach.
There was a time when the world was looking at alternatives to the Kyoto Protocol. Then, we looked at the design of hybrid international policy architectures, which is what the Paris Agreement is, combining top-down and bottom-up. After this, we began looking at Article 6 and Article 6.2 as economic analysis has much to offer here.
This year, we’re looking at something that is both within and beyond the Paris Agreement — that is the role methane plays in climate change and how policies can address this. At Harvard, I lead a university-wide initiative focused on reducing global methane emissions, with 20 faculty members researching diverse aspects of this, ranging from atmospheric physicists using satellites to measure methane concentrations to Harvard Business School faculty studying possibilities for industry.
Q. Why is methane important in global climate strategy?
A.
