August 2021
News and comment
Why carbon dividends are having a moment
People are most likely to support climate policies that they consider to be fair. With the recent rise in alarmist rhetoric around the ‘cost’ of net-zero and the need to ensure a just low-carbon transition, Josh Burke explores the case for recycling the proceeds of a carbon tax back to households. Read more
Flash floods: a grim reminder that adaptation is as important as reducing emissions
Learning lessons from the devastating flooding in Western Europe and China – and raising awareness of the importance of flood risk reduction activities and the long-term consequences of inaction – should be seen as a necessary investment in our future, write Swenja Surminski and Viktor Rözer, as they draw out particular lessons for Germany. Read more
Jasmine Tillu explains how China’s new ‘Leading Small Group’ can accelerate China’s environmental and economic goals by focusing on cities and working to peak carbon emissions by 2025 instead of 2030. Read more
Latest publications
Distributional impacts analysis of engineered Greenhouse Gas Removal technologies in the UK
Policy | Anne Owen, Josh Burke and Esin Serin
The UK’s net-zero commitment assumes the use of greenhouse gas removal (GGR) technologies, but there is little understanding of how they might be funded and who will bear the cost. This study prepared for the National Infrastructure Commission analyses how the distribution of costs for funding these technologies impacts society across income deciles. Read more
Grantham Research Institute – Publications review
The communications team is conducting a review of the Institute’s policy publications over the next few weeks, looking at their quality and user-friendliness. If you have 5–10 minutes to spare before 27 August, and whether or not you have previously accessed one of our policy reports, we would really appreciate your views via this anonymous short survey. Complete the survey here
The UK’s Green Gilt: Demonstrating the contribution to jobs and levelling up
Policy | Nick Robins and Sabrina Muller
This note from the Impact Investing Institute and the Grantham Research Institute outlines a practical and implementable framework for delivering the social co-benefits dimension of the UK’s green gilt, laying the foundations for further development in subsequent green giltissuances. Read more
The impact of climate legislation on trade-related carbon emissions, 1997–2017
Research | Shaikh Eskander and Sam Fankhauser
There is considerable anxiety about the international impact of unilateral action on climate change, particularly around ‘carbon leakage’. Looking at the impact of national climate change policy and legislation over the past two decades, this paper finds no evidence it has increased international carbon leakage. Read more
From the grand to the granular: translating just transition ambitions into investor action
Policy | Nick Robins, Sabrina Muller and Katarzyna Szwarc
This report sets out a framework of just transition expectations that investors can use in conducting due diligence and assessments of companies, engaging with portfolio holdings and allocating capital. The framework is based on international standards and emerging practice and is applied to five companies in the European electric utilities sector. Read more
Supporting urban adaptation to climate change: what role can resilience measurement tools play?
Research | Sara Mehryar, Idan Sasson and Swenja Surminski
This study explores how and to what extent tools to measure urban climate resilience can be or have been utilised by city-level actors to support their decision-making processes for building resilience. Read more
Observing the unobservable: a field experiment on early adopters of a climate-friendly behavior
Research | Greer Gosnell, Stefano Carattini and Alessandro Tavoni
Increasing the uptake of behaviours that are not yet niche is crucial to the sustainable energy transition. The authors of this paper test a novel approach to foster the uptake of renewable energy tariffs among a large sample of households in England and Wales. Read more
Forthcoming events
Launch of From the Grand to the Granular: Translating Just Transition Ambitions into Investor Action
8 September 2021, 10:00-11:30 BST | Online event
The report sets out a framework of just transition expectations that investors can use in conducting due diligence and assessments of companies, engaging with portfolio holdings and allocating capital. At the event a presentation of the report findings will be followed by a panel discussion on just transition investor action and questions from the audience. Find out more and register
China’s Environmental Foreign Relations
30 September 2021, 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm BST | Online event
Ahead of COP26 in November, LSE IDEAS’ China Foresight Project, the Grantham Research Institute at LSE, and LSE’s Department of International Relations co-host a panel discussing the evolution of China’s own understanding of the environment, the role of domestic stakeholders in shaping Chinese environmental diplomacy and Beijing’s role in the upcoming COP26. Further details