CONTEXT:  RWE is not confined to the world of health care and pharmaceuticals.  This article explores RWE in climate change policy effectiveness.

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1. “The King Climate Action Initiative (K-CAI), a research and policy initiative of MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), announced the results of its first competition aimed at identifying and scaling innovative solutions at the intersection of poverty and climate change.” 

2. “K-CAI addresses this research need by funding randomized evaluations that will generate rigorous evidence and catalyze the scale-up of effective climate policy and technology solutions.”   

3. “Building on evidence from a 2019 randomized evaluation in Gujarat, India, a new project led by Michael Greenstone, J-PAL Energy, Environment, and Climate Change sector co-chair and Milton Friedman Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago; Rohini Pande, J-PAL Political Economy and Governance sector co-chair, professor of economics, and director of the Economic Growth Center at Yale University; Nick Ryan PhD ’12, J-PAL affiliate and assistant professor of economics at Yale University; and Anant Sudarshan, South Asia director at the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago will support regulators in piloting and scaling an emissions trading program to incentivize reducing air pollutants in Punjab and Gujarat.” 

4. “A new scale-up project, led by B. Kelsey Jack, J-PAL Energy, Environment, and Climate Change sector co-chair and associate professor of environmental and development economics at the University of California at Santa Barbara, will adapt evidence on targeting to improve the delivery of electricity subsidies to low-income households in Cape Town, building on long-term partnerships between J-PAL Africa, Jack, and the local government.” 

5. “Funding these projects is a critical first step in developing long-term, evidence-based, and effective climate change solutions focused on both mitigation and solutions are critical in the global fight against climate change, and K-CAI’s first round of competition winners demonstrate that it is possible to rigorously evaluate climate policies in real-world settings,” said Iqbal Dhaliwal, global executive director of J-PAL.” 

Source URL: https://news.mit.edu/2021/king-climate-action-initiative-to-begin-testing-scaling-climate-solutions-0225