Environment, Energy, and Climate Change
Climate change disproportionately affects people living in poverty and threatens to reverse decades of progress in global poverty alleviation. However, there is a critical lack of research on the real-world impacts of climate solutions. Leaders around the world need more evidence on the effectiveness of technological and policy innovations to implement solutions that address climate change and poverty.
In addition to supporting policymakers in applying evidence from randomized evaluations to their work, sector chairs and staff write policy insights that synthesize general lessons emerging from the research, condense results from evaluations in policy publications and evaluation summaries, and fund new research and scale-ups at the nexus of climate change and poverty alleviation through the King Climate Action Initiative.
In the news
Solutions at the Nexus of Climate Change and Poverty Alleviation
J-PAL's King Climate Action Initiative (KCA-I) has funded a total of 25 research projects including forest conservation on a budget and predicting floods in India.
Blog
Two lessons from the landmark IPCC report on climate change
IPCC’s recent climate report urges rapid action to produce deep reductions in emissions and adapt to climate change in the coming decades. We highlight key takeaways for poverty alleviation efforts.
In the news
Punjab inks pact to launch emissions trading
In partnership with J-PAL and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, the Punjab government is developing an emissions trading scheme to reduce pollution in the state.
In the news
If we can vaccinate the world, we can beat the climate crisis
J-PAL co-founders Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo write that rich countries' willingness to follow through on their promises to deliver Covid-19 vaccines to poorer countries and drastically reduce global vaccine inequity will test whether rich countries can be trusted to tackle global climate...
Policy insight
Encouraging residential energy efficiency
Programs that encouraged investments in residential energy efficiency had limited returns in several impact evaluations in real-world settings. Relatively small impacts on energy savings coupled with low take-up meant that encouraging these investments through information campaigns and subsidies was...
Case study
Strengthening third-party audits to reduce pollution
Evidence from a randomized evaluation informed the scale-up of a pollution audit policy in Gujarat, India.
In the news
A Breath of Fresh Air
J-PAL affiliated professor Nicholas Ryan, along with J-PAL's King Climate Action Initiative (K-CAI), are working with environmental regulators in Gujarat to measure the impact of cap-and-trade emission reduction strategies in India.
In the news
Cash for Carbon: Paying People to Conserve Trees Works, Study Finds
In this article and video, J-PAL affiliate Seema Jayachandran discusses her randomized evaluation of a payments for ecosystems program in Uganda.
