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Quake’n and Shake’n…Forever!
The aftershocks of earthquakes can go on for months and even years in the ground. But how long do the aftershocks go on in human lives? Disruptions in living conditions and income seem likely to have...
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Faced with a Water Shortage, a Flood of Ideas.
The US state of California is passing through a very serious drought, which has resulted in serious problems of water availability. Experts have not been able to agree on the reasons for the extreme...
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Too Warm for Growth?
When people think about climate change, what often comes to mind are rising temperatures. Indeed, for much of the world’s population higher temperatures most dramatically manifest themselves in an...
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A Climate for Infant Health
Exposure to extremes in weather during childhood and adulthood has increasingly well-known effects. Since those extremes are becoming more frequent, researchers and policymakers are working on ways to...
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The Land May Be Dry, but the Flood Goes On
The immediate effects of floods are well known and frequently devastating. Lives are lost and homes and possessions destroyed or damaged by water, while crops can be ruined or washed away, affecting...
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Climate Change Can Harm Your Health
2015 was without a doubt a year for raising awareness, at least as far as the environment is concerned. We closed the year with the Climate Change Summit in Paris, where 195 countries reached an...
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Take Obama’s Advice on Climate Change: Droughts Are Hurting Latin America
After his visit to Argentina last week, Barack Obama posted on Facebook a picture of a beautiful landscape in Patagonia where he went trekking along glacial lakes, as an example of what he called...
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Preparing for Climate Change Migrants
In recent days, climate change has surged back into public consciousness with a disturbing report of rapid melting in the West Antarctic ice sheet. According to the report, the disintegration of the...
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Happy Days Are Not Here Again
The region’s oil exporters are enjoying a mild reprieve from devastatingly low prices. For now. While the price uptick may have several causes, the most dramatic contributing factor is the Fort...
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Climate Change and its Indoor Impacts
The shriveled crops and bleached bones of livestock across large areas of South America following recent droughts may be just the beginning. By mid-century climate change is likely to boost...
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Help the Economy, Save the Environment
Latin America and the Caribbean rang in World Environment Day June 5th with much to celebrate. Home to the world’s largest expanse of tropical forest, its greatest species diversity, and some of its...
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When Solar Power Cuts Costs and Emissions
The epic droughts that have devastated Latin America over the last five years, drying up river beds and crippling electricity generation, stand as a clear warning. Latin America and the Caribbean may...
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Natural Disasters: How Nations Build Resilience
In the aftermath of the devastating earthquake which struck Haiti in 2010, killing more than 220,000 people and leaving 1 million homeless, governments and multilateral organizations gathered in New...
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Global Warming: Why a Couple Degrees Makes All the Difference
What’s the big fuss over 2 degrees Celsius? That’s the temperature increase to which 195 countries agreed to limit global warming at the 2015 Paris climate talks. And it would seem to be trivial. A...
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Fighting the Fossil Fuel Addiction
For a region that is very vulnerable to climate change, Latin America remains highly dependent on fossil fuels. Around 40% of the region’s energy generation still comes from oil, natural gas, and...
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Modeling Tradeoffs in the Fight Against Climate Change
Mexico was the world’s first developing nation to commit. The rest of Latin America and the Caribbean followed. Taking stock of climate change’s effects on sea rise, extreme weather, crop failures...
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Bracing for Impact: Preparing Nations for Natural Disasters
The lashing rains and 185-mile-per-hour winds pounding the Caribbean from Hurricane Irma; the toppled homes and flooded streets in Texas and Louisiana from Hurricane Harvey, with its tens of thousands...
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Stepping Up the Struggle Against Climate Change
The word out of Bonn, where the latest United Nations Climate summit came to an end Nov. 18, is hardly encouraging. Assuming that countries honor their commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions...
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Can Small Farmers Adapt to Climate Change Shocks?
When researchers consider the economic costs of climate change, they often estimate models based on historical temperature and economic data. But it can be difficult to account for adaptation....
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Pushing the Frontier of Solar Cells
Areas of Latin America, like Mexico and Chile, have some of the world’s greatest solar potential. But a new technological development in solar cells could allow them to harness more of the sun’s...
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New National Parks Can Help Latin America Tackle its Drought Problem
The last few months have been big ones for conservation in Latin America. New and expanded national parks covering millions of hectares have been created, encompassing everything from the towering...
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Climate Policy: When the Expensive Options Make Sense
To stabilize climate change, we need to get to zero net carbon emissions by the end of the century. A key question then for policymakers is when and how to reduce emissions. Imagine you are a...
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China’s Dockless Biking Boom and the Lessons for Latin America
They have set off a surge in bike riding, sparked explosive investment, and helped cut air pollution and carbon emissions. But the “dockless” — or stationless — bikes that have transformed China’s...
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Facing Climate Change’s Threat to Caribbean Tourism
When residents of the Caribbean think of hurricanes, like Irma and Maria that whipped through the region last fall, they think not only of the loss of hundreds of human lives and homes, but of the...
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Can Latin American Citizens Change Climate Policy?
Latin Americans enthusiastically backed Pope Francis when in June 2015 he published Laudato Si, his encyclical warning that global warming was “one of the principal challenges facing humanity.”...
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Can We Reduce Emissions While We Wait for a Carbon Tax?
We environmental economists have long advocated carbon taxes as the fastest and most efficient way to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from cars and power plants and prevent catastrophic global warming...
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A Changing Climate Requires New Farming Habits: How Can Behavioral Economics...
Latin America and the Caribbean will face steep challenges in coming decades to provide food security and guarantee a decent income for its rural population. Greater rainfall and increasingly...
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Stemming the Tide of Plastic Pollution
When a whale washed up on the shores of the Philippines in March with 88 pounds of plastic inside its stomach, people recoiled with horror. Plastic litter on the beaches and in the oceans is unseemly...
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Some Economists Say We’re Less Selfish Than We Think. Why?
Ask anyone in a Western society what makes the world go round, and they are likely to say selfishness, or at least self-interest. It is an idea drilled into us by Thomas Hobbes more than three hundred...
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What Behavioral Economics Reveals About Sharing and Cooperation
By Juan Camilo Cárdenas Disappearing forests. Overfishing. Chronic water shortages. These are all major challenges for economists in a 21st century of population pressures and climate change....
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How A Simple Sign Helped Cut Household Emissions by 17%
When the bitter chill of winter descends on the cities of south-central Chile, residents load up their wood-burning stoves with firewood, turn the dampers, or levers, on their stoves down to keep the...
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Strengthening Climate Goals Will End Up Saving Money for Latin America and...
By Adrien Vogt-Schilb and Matthew Binsted What if I told you that making greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets more stringent would be cheaper than keeping current ones? That might seem to defy...
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Electric Vehicles: Towards Clean and Affordable Transportation
Concerned by climate change and urban pollution, governments and consumers are rapidly moving towards electric vehicles. Battery prices have decreased, and electric cars are increasingly competitive...
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How Better Electricity Storage Can Help Make Latin America’s Energy...
With plenty of hydropower and recent additions of wind and solar generation, Latin America and the Caribbean boasts one of cleanest electricity grids in the world. And yet, as we show in our recent...
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The False Choice of Renewable Energy
Part of our “behind the scenes” series of posts for our 2020 flagship publication From Structures to Services: The Path to Better Infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean Recent news items...
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Managing the Existential Crises of COVID-19 and Climate Change Together
Hurricanes batter Central America killing hundreds and causing billions of dollars in losses. Wildfires destroy one-third of the Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland, as drought sears Brazilian...
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How Climate Change Worsens Poverty and Inequality
Over the coming decades, climate change and natural disasters have the potential to undo much of the progress made in lifting households out of poverty over prior decades. By one estimate, climate...
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Do Air Pollution Alerts Work to Change Behavior and Reduce Exposure?
The World Health Organization calls air pollution the number one environmental threat to health in the Americas. More than 60,000 people in Latin America died prematurely from exposure to fine...
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The Unequal Effects of Air Pollution on Health and Income in Mexico City
Perched 7,300 feet above sea level in a valley wrapped round by mountains and volcanoes, Mexico City has long suffered from thick layers of smog produced by cars, factories, and wildfires. Among the...
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Achieving Climate Change Goals Means Redirecting 7 to 19% of GDP Worth of...
The case for immediate climate action could not be more stark. Global temperatures have already risen by 1.1°C and over 3 billion people are highly vulnerable to the effects of a warming planet,...
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What Can City Governments in Latin America Do to Improve Public Health?
The place where somebody lives matters for their physical well-being. Even within the same country, residents of different cities can have on average better or worse health, partly due to policies...
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Confronting the Economic Effects of Climate Change in Latin America and the...
Searing temperatures; rising sea levels. Rainfall, drought, and hurricanes that grow more threatening and intense. With the last seven years registering the hottest temperatures in recorded history,...
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