The Paris Agreement and Beyond: International Climate Change Policy Post 2020

While the Paris Agreement sets forth an innovative and potentially effective policy architecture, a great deal remains to be done to elaborate the accord—to formulate the many rules and guidelines required and to specify more precise means of implementation. Governments, other stakeholders, and researchers also need to think about constraints on the effectiveness of the Paris Agreement—and identify organizations and processes that could complement the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process more broadly. In July 2016, the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements hosted a research workshop at the Harvard Kennedy School, the purpose of which was to identify options for elaborating and implementing the Paris Agreement—and to identify policies and institutions that might complement or supplement the Paris-Agreement regime. Participants, which included Nicholas Institute researchers Brian Murray and Billy Pizer, subsequently prepared the briefs that are included in this volume, based largely on their presentations at the workshop, addressing opportunities for—and challenges to—elaborating, implementing, and complementing the Paris Agreement.