Welcome to Climate Strategies

In its rapid development to date, Climate Strategies has already made significant impact on the development of international policy responses to climate change. With our unique blend of internationally networked research that engages relevant decision processes, our work on allocation issues in the European Trading Scheme – the focal point of our initial ‘trial’ project in 2006 - provided crucial input to the European Commission decisions on Phase II allocation. Our 2007 research projects made important input both to the design proposals for the EU ETS post 2012, and the wider debate about competitiveness and carbon leakage. The results of our assessment of the international Kyoto project mechanisms will be published shortly.

Climate Strategies’ research programme for 2008 illustrated the rapidly expanding intellectual scope and international reach of our activities. Reflecting the 3-year development plan, we have moved firmly into the terrain of global, post-2012 design issues, building upon the base established by our earlier research.

For 2009 the principal projects on the former include: Kyoto track negotiations; price floors, caps, and exchange-rate mechanisms in emission trading schemes; distribution and comparability of effort; and lessons from effort-sharing in the EU 2020 package. Further research on extending and reforming the CDM, and international support for domestic policy and implementation, is under way; and we have studies on sector-specific approaches, including international marine and steel sector studies, in progress. Additional projects are focused upon international competitiveness issues.