Environment, Energy, and Climate Change

J-PAL’s Environment, Energy, and Climate Change sector measures the real-world impacts of energy and environmental policies, particularly on climate change mitigation, pollution reduction, climate change adaptation, and energy access.

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

Photo of an officer checking the condition of the solar panel, early warning system, in anticipation of landslides
Blog

Of satellites and surveys: How innovative data collection can speed up climate action

This Earth Day blog post discusses how we speed up the path from research to policy action at J-PAL through the King Climate Action Initiative (K-CAI), which prioritizes funding research and scaling that uses administrative and remote sensing data to generate results in a timely manner.

 J-PAL King Climate Action Initiative co-chair Kelsey Jack speaks about the importance of rigorous evidence from randomized evaluations
Blog

On the ground at COP27: Sharing policy solutions for climate adaptation

Climate change has the potential to undo decades of progress in poverty alleviation and improvements in well-being among the most vulnerable. Recognizing this challenge, J-PAL’s work in the Environment, Energy, and Climate Change sector seeks to measure the real-world impacts of energy and...

News

To Ease the Climate Crisis, First Figure Out What Works

The New York Times summarized Nobel Laureate and J-PAL co-founder Esther Duflo's interview about climate change and inequality at The New York Times Climate Forward event.

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. 

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...

Improving third-party pollution audits in Gujarat
Evidence to Policy

Strengthening third-party audits to reduce pollution

Evidence from a randomized evaluation informed the scale-up of a pollution audit policy in Gujarat, India.

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.

Sector Chairs

Co-Chair, Environment, Energy, and Climate Change

Milton Friedman Professor of Economics

University of Chicago

Kelsey Jack

Co-Chair, Environment, Energy, and Climate Change

Member, Executive Committee

Associate Professor

University of California Santa Barbara

Sector Contacts

Headshot of Jack Ellington

Policy Associate, J-PAL Global

Headshot of Maike Pfeiffer

Senior Policy Associate, J-PAL Global

Associate Director of Policy, J-PAL Global

Andre Zollinger

Policy Manager, J-PAL Global