Common Resources

Brazil Takes a Turn for - What?

A recent Bloomberg View article (“Brazil Puts a Denier in Charge of Climate Change,” January 7) draws a sharp contrast between Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s September UN General Assembly reference to climate change as “one of the greatest challenges of our times” and a just-announced appointment to her cabinet. A slightly edited version of my […]

Prioritizing Policies for Biodiversity Conservation: A new RFF Press Book

Poverty, political instability, and natural disasters are just a few of the problems facing Latin America and the Caribbean. So it’s not surprising that policymakers devote limited resources to conserving the region’s biodiversity—even if it is, by all accounts, exceptionally rich and valuable. But that’s exactly why those scarce conservation resources need to be deployed […]

Paying Ecuador to Protect the Rainforest

A recent episode of NPR’s Planet Money discussed Ecuador’s proposed solution to a national dilemma: the fact that a massive oil discovery and a national park happen to be in the same place. Ecuador’s proposal is to forswear drilling - but only if other countries donate half the value of the oil in aid (about $3.6 […]

Will Bolivia Lead a New Climate Diplomacy?

On February 10, the European Union Parliament called for a “new climate diplomacy” where a coordinated EU strategy will work closely with progressive developing and emerging economies. Bolivia’s leadership thinks it’s about time. In January, populist Bolivian President Evo Morales announced a three-day conference on climate change to serve as an alternative to Copenhagen. The meeting […]