By Xinyue Ma At the 76th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) this September, Chinese leader Xi Jinping announced China would increase support for other developing countries in green and low-carbon energy and would not build new coal-fired power plants abroad. As the Group of 20 (G20) made similar commitments soon after in October 2021 to […]
The 1972 World Heritage Convention (WHC) and 1994 Global Strategy aim to preserve the outstanding universal value of internationally important cultural and natural sites within a “representative, balanced and credible” network of highly-protected areas. Increasing human pressures and shortfalls in representation have been documented across the World Heritage network, particularly in terrestrial and cultural sites, […]
By Bridgette Lang Over the past four months, the Fall 2021 Global China Initiative Research Colloquium has brought scholars from around the world together for a webinar series on topics related to Chinese investment, overseas financing, energy and development. In September 2021, Ying Qian kicked off the series by presenting a new working paper on […]
When it comes to the provision of global public goods, the two largest and most systemically connected countries in the world must work in parallel at minimum and together at optimum in order to achieve and maintain a more equal, stable and sustainable global economy. This is not to ignore the fact that the two […]
Raging hurricanes, devastating floods, sea-level rise, heatwaves, and other extreme weather conditions are now attributed to climate change. In a new article published in the Journal of Impact and ESG Investing, Sucharita Gopal, Joshua Pitts, Kalyani Inampudi, Yingqiang Xu and Graham Cook propose that climate change poses a significant investment risk in terms of economic losses […]
Generating 38.5 percent of the global electricity supply, coal-fired power plants are the largest contributors to carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the power sector. The development of these plants represents the tradeoffs and tensions between expanding and improving electricity supply, while reducing CO2 emissions, as embodied in the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Goal […]
By Blake Alexander Simmons and Rebecca Ray Last month, leaders from over 130 countries endorsed the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), pledging to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. This comes on the heels of another agreement, the Kunming Declaration from the Convention on Biological […]
By Xinyue Ma As delegations from around the globe met in Glasgow to advance the world’s efforts against climate change at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) on November 10, the Ethiopian Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, the Boston University Global Development Policy Center, the Tufts University Climate Policy Lab and […]
Conserving coral reefs is critical for maintaining marine biodiversity, protecting coastlines and supporting livelihoods in many coastal communities. Climate change threatens coral reefs globally, but researchers have identified a portfolio of bioclimatic units (BCUs), or coral reefs, that are relatively less exposed to climate impacts and connected to other reef systems. These reefs provide a […]
Many markets have multiple voluntary certification programs that sellers use to signal product or organizational quality. While previous scholarship has emphasized the potential for competition between labels, what happens when labels are viewed as complementary? In a new journal article published in the Strategic Management Journal, Xia Li and Timothy Simcoe argue there can be positive spillovers […]