Why it’s so hard to tell which climate policies actually work
Better tools are needed to analyse their effects
NATIONAL CLIMATE policies are a relatively recent invention. In 1997, according to the Grantham Institute, a think-tank at the London School of Economics, there were 60; by 2022 the number had risen to almost 3,000. Their effectiveness has proved almost impossible to measure. In August, an international research group published the first global evaluation of climate policies in Science, a journal. The study, which looked at around 1,500 policies implemented in 41 countries between 1998 and 2022, found that just 63 could be linked to sizeable reductions in emissions.
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This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “So much hot air”
From the October 5th 2024 edition
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Deforestation is costing Brazilian farmers millions
Without trees to circulate moisture, the land is getting hotter and drier
Robots can learn new actions faster thanks to AI techniques
They could soon show their moves in settings from car factories to care homes
Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad for you
A mystery is finally being solved
Scientific publishers are producing more papers than ever
Concerns about some of their business models are building
The two types of human laugh
One is caused by tickling; the other by everything else
Scientists are building a catalogue of every type of cell in our bodies
It has thus far shed light on everything from organ formation to the causes of inflammation