New Climate Economy: Call for Evidence

7 February 2014

The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate is a major new international initiative to analyse and communicate the economic benefits and costs of acting on climate change. Chaired by former President of Mexico Felipe Calderón, the Commission comprises former heads of government and finance ministers and leaders in the fields of economics and business.

The New Climate Economy (NCE) is the Commission’s flagship project. The project is being undertaken by a global partnership of research institutes and a core team led by Programme Director Jeremy Oppenheim. An Advisory Panel of world-leading economists, chaired by Lord Nicholas Stern will carry out an expert review of the work.  It aims to provide independent and authoritative evidence on the relationship between actions which can strengthen economic performance and those which reduce the risk of dangerous climate change, and to influence global debate about the future of economic growth and climate action. It will report in September 2014 in advance of the United Nations Climate Summit.

Cities workstream

LSE Cities is leading the NCE research programme on cities. Other key institutions involved in the cities programme include the World Resources Institute (US), the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (India), Stockholm Environment Institute (Sweden) and Tsinghua University (China). The cities research programme for NCE is being led by Graham Floater and supported by Philipp Rode.

The cities workstream aims to assemble the evidence base on the economic opportunities, risks and barriers to cities in taking climate action. This will be used to shape the findings and recommendations of the Global Commission.

The research programme is designed to be grounded in the priorities of economic decision makers. It therefore focuses on how cities can achieve core economic objectives in the context of increased climate risk.

The project’s starting point is therefore to engage directly with the goals and perspectives of key decision-makers: finance and economic ministries at the national level, city mayors and those who take major investment decisions in and around cities. The research will seek to take a rigorously objective and evidence-based approach, independently assessing the evidence from all sides of the debate.

Read a detailed introduction to the cities workstream.

Call for Evidence

To support the development of the Commission’s findings and recommendations, the project is launching a Call for Evidence process. We are inviting contributions from cities, research institutes, think tanks, business organisations, consultancies, academics and civil society organisations. For further details, see the New Climate Economy website.

Read the full call for evidence.

The deadline for submissions is 4 April 2014.