On Monday, government officials met to begin developing a “rule book” for implementing the United Nations climate agreement signed in Paris this past December. Details need to be worked out as to how nations will monitor, report, and review their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“Official agreement on specific metrics and a comprehensive policy surveillance mechanism is a tall order,” according to research by RFF’s Joseph E. Aldy of Harvard University and William A. Pizer of Duke University. They note that climate mitigation efforts can be measured in “three general categories: those that focus on emissions, prices, and costs,” and suggest that a portfolio approach “would mirror how analysts describe the health of the macroeconomy with a suite of economic statistics that includes GDP, the unemployment rate, the inflation rate, and interest rates.”
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