Policy Practicum: Hot Money: Toward Effective Climate Finance and Policy in Southeast Asia

Catalog description

The fight to curb climate change will be won or lost in emerging markets and developing economies -- particularly those in Southeast Asia -- in which surging energy consumption and infrastructure investment today will lock in carbon-emission patterns for decades. Policymakers and investors in these countries and in international development institutions have pledged, most recently at international climate talks in Egypt in November 2022, aggressive emission reductions and significant funding to achieve them. But the environmental efficacy of that investment will depend on how well the spending is calibrated to the realities of the political economies -- that is, the structures of power -- in the countries in question. In this research seminar, also known as a policy practicum, students will work closely with policymakers and investors in Indonesia and/or Vietnam, and with international finance officials focused on those countries, on research that will help inform key energy and energy-finance plans that are in the process of being crafted. The students' work will inform a series of workshops to be held with these players throughout 2023, and it will figure into writing submitted for publication. This work constitutes the next stage of a research program of the Stanford Climate of Infrastructure Project. The research earlier produced a peer-reviewed paper (on which students were named co-authors) illuminating patterns of international climate finance, and a variety of other writings. Because of the depth of the work involved, and of the benefit of continuity in it, students who agree to participate in this policy lab for two quarters -- both the winter 2023 and spring 2023 quarters - will be given priority to enroll. Elements used in grading: Attendance, Performance, Class Participation, Written Assignments, Final Paper. Students enrolled in Section 02 (with…