Michael Jacobs
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International climate change policy

I study and write about international and domestic climate change and environmental policy, with a particular focus on the possibility of rapid and large-scale structural economic change and the relationship between economic growth and environmental sustainability.

From 2012-15 I worked on economic research and political strategy to help achieve a new international climate change agreement at the UN climate conference (COP21) in December 2015.

I helped to establish and was Senior Adviser to the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate and its New Climate Economy project. I was a lead author of and director of strategy for its report,  Better Growth, Better Climate, published in September 2014. The report, which has been widely disseminated and discussed around the world, provided authoritative new evidence on the compatibility of economic growth and development with action on climate change. I directed the second report of the Commission, Seizing the Global Opportunity: Partnerships for Better Growth and a Better Climate, which was published in July 2015, along with eleven policy papers. 

From 2013-14 I was Senior Adviser on International Climate Change Policy at IDDRI (l'Institut du Développement Durable et des Relations Internationales) in Paris, working with 
the French Government to support their preparations for COP21, and continued this work in 2015 through the Global Commission. I focused in particular on the 'solutions agenda' of action by businesses, international organisations and non-state actors, working closely with the office of the UN Secretary General on the New York Climate Summit in 2014. I also worked closely with a network of non-government organisations, communications specialists and government on the political preparations for COP21.
 I subsequently wrote about how this strategy was organised.  

I was a Visiting Professor at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment  at the London School of Economics and Political Science from 2010-16. There my principal focus was on low carbon economic development and 'green growth' and on the international political economy of climate change.

From 2010-13 I was a consultant adviser to the climate change programme of the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF). I worked mainly on policy and advocacy for the decarbonisation of the European power sector, on European carbon pricing policy, and on the development of climate policy and clean energy investment in Latin America.  From  2011-13 I was a member of the Board of the European Climate Foundation (ECF). I was a member of CIFF's Climate Change Advisory Board from 2010-15. 

In 2011 I worked with the Grantham Research Institute, ECF and IDDRI to bring together economic modelling and policy groups in Europe, China, India and Brazil involved in developing national low carbon growth scenarios, a project subsequently developed by IDDRI and the Earth Institute at Columbia University as 'Pathways to Deep Decarbonization'.  In 2010 I worked with Nick Stern on the UN Secretary-General’s High Level Advisory Group on Climate Finance.

In 2010-11 I wrote a series of articles on climate change issues for the online journal Inside Story and the Huffington Post. I continue to write occasional opinion and commentary pieces in the Guardian

. 

Background

As Special Adviser to Gordon Brown, both at the Treasury and at No 10, I was closely involved in the development of the UK's international climate change strategy from 2005-10.  At the Treasury I originated and oversaw the Stern Report on the economics of climate change in 2005-06.  I helped to initiate and promote the development of the Clean Energy Investment Framework of the World Bank and regional development banks, and the subsequent creation of the Climate Investment Funds.  Internally I helped to create the UK's $1.6bn Environmental Transformation Fund for international development.  I initiated and oversaw the Eliasch Review on financing global forests, published in October 2008.  I played a principal role in the negotiation of the EU's climate change and energy policy package agreed in December 2008.  I represented the prime Minister at the Major Economies Meetings from 2007-09 and helped to direct the development of the UK's Bali and Copenhagen strategies, including the Prime Minister's own interventions, including on climate finance, in the run up to and at Copenhagen. I was closely involved in bilateral negotiations and relations with other countries throughout this period. Under Gordon Brown's co-chairmanship I helped to establish the UN Secretary-General's High Level Advisory Group on Climate Finance in 2010.  



 

Recent writing

Circuses have evolved and so must UN climate summits
Climate Home News, 5 February 2023

​Agreement by ordeal

Inside Story, 22 November 2022
​

Keynes comes to Sharm el-Sheik
Inside Story, 16 November 2022

What exactly is the point of COP27?
Inside Story, 4 November 2022

​Reflections on COP26:
International diplomacy, global justice and the greening of capitalism

Political Quarterly, April-June 2022

​Glasgow kiss
Inside Story  ​​15 November 2021

"System change not climate change!"
Inside Story  ​​9 November 2021

Closing the Glasgow gap 
Inside Story  ​​4 November 2021

​The Glasgow paradox
Inside Story  ​​27 October 2021

Boris Johnson's high-stakes gamble
Inside Story  ​​29 September 2021

​Recovering better: a green, equitable and resilient recovery from coronavirus
​Briefing note for European Climate Foundation
​ 30 March 2020


'Net zero' and the innovation-policy nexus
SPERI blog  13 June 2019
​
High pressure for low emissions: How civil society created the Paris climate agreement
Juncture  14 March  2016
(also published by 
Inside Story  23 March  2016)

The Paris Agreement is
highly ambitious and very clever

Grantham Research Institute blog 
18 December 2015
(also as a Green Alliance blog  21 December 2015)

Paris is a pragmatic climate deal
New Scientist interview  15 December 2015

The Carbon Brief Interview
Carbon Brief   19 October 2015

The world's climate pledges are impressive - but still not enough  Guardian  16 October 2015

Ensuring new infrastructure is climate-smart  New Climate Economy Working Paper 
October  2015

Reflections on the latest report of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate
Grantham Research Institute blog  8 July 2015

Seizing the global opportunity: partnerships for better growth and a better climate [lead author] 
The second New Climate Economy report
July 2015 

The prospects for Paris 2015
New Statesman  6 January 2015


Lima deal represents fundamental change in global climate regime

Guardian  15 December 2014

(also in Project Syndicate  15 December 2014)

Emissions targets are biggest challenge for Lima climate talks
Guardian  2 December 2014

Five ways Ban Ki-Moon's summit has changed international climate politics forever
Guardian  24 September 2014

New Climate Economy: it's not just another report
Responding to Climate Change 
16 September 2014


Better Growth, Better Climate
[co-lead author]
The New Climate Economy report

September 2014

The climate change agenda heats up
Project Syndicate  7 March 2014

Green growth
Chapter in The Handbook of Global Climate and Environment Policy, ed Robert Falkner
Wiley 2013 (also published here)

Economie verte: mefions-nous des marchands de doute
Les Echos  4 January 2013 

The Doha climate change talks were a start, but 2015 will be the moment of truth
Guardian  10 December 2012

A low carbon future is the one we must all fight for
Guardian  2 December 2012

Politics and the planet
Political Quarterly Commentary
December 2012  (reprinted here)

Less pain, more gain: the potential of carbon pricing to reduce Europe's fiscal deficits
  Grantham Research Institute Policy Paper, London School of Economics  November 2012

Green growth: economic theory and political discourse
  Grantham Research Institute Working Paper, London School of Economics  October 2012

The potential role for carbon pricing in reducing European deficits
(with Hector Pollitt et al)  Global Policy
 18 September 2012

What is the state of international climate change talks?  Guardian  17 September 2012

Oral evidence given to the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Select Committee Enquiry on 'The road to UNFCCC COP18 and beyond'  22May 2012

Deadline 2015
Nature  12 January 2012 (reprinted here)



Writing 2010-11

What Durban revealed about climate's shifting allegiances
Inside Story  14 December 2011

Hope at last in Durban
Guardian  11 December 2011

UN talks see 'delayer countries' throw away the 2C goal  Guardian  1 December 2011

Can Durban deliver?  Inside Story
and Huffington Post  29 November 2011

EU economy - black hole or green growth?
Comment on Martin Wolf's Economists' Blog
Financial Times
28 October 2011

Tax can be used to tackle climate change Interview in International Tax Review
1 October 2011

Can Germany go green?
Inside Story  1 August 2011

Green growth: an idea whose time has come
Inside Story  24 June 2011

Leveraging private investment: the role of public sector finance  Overseas Development Institute Background Note  April 2011

The China factor  Inside Story  28 April 2011

Taking stock on climate
  Inside Story  2 March 2011

Cancun: the glass half full
Inside Story and Huffington Post  16 December 2010

Why Cancun  gives us hope
  Guardian  15 December 2010

Cancun climate conference  Guardian podcast
  10 December 2010

Cancun climate talks: in search of the Holy Grail  Guardian  29 November 2010

Copenhagen was not a (complete) failure
  Inside Story and Huffington Post  4 November 2010

Europe’s radical carbon choice
Inside Story and Huffington Post  6 October 2010

Arctic oil: the battle begins
Inside Story and Huffington Post  2 September 2010

Is it all over for climate policy in the United States?  Inside Story  29 July 2010


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