Michael A. Mehling
Welcome to my personal webpage. I am Deputy Director of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR), a research center that has pioneered the rigorous and empirical study of energy and environmental policies since 1977.
On these pages, you can find further information about my work, including a detailed biography, research and publications, policy and advisory activities, teaching and engagement, news and opinion features, as well as contact details.
Recent Highlights
Research Handbook on Climate Finance and Investment
Edited collection examining climate finance and investment law, assessing how finance and investment frameworks shape climate policy objectives and mapping emerging legal trends and research agendas.
The European Union’s CBAM: Averting Emissions Leakage or Promoting the Diffusion of Carbon Pricing?
While its effectiveness in preventing emissions leakage has yet to be demonstrated, Europe's CBAM has already exerted a powerful spillover effect by incentivizing the global acceleration of carbon pricing. Going forward, the EU will have to balance several tradeoffs to maintain this spillover effect.
Counting on Carbon Pricing: Determining a Carbon Price Paid in Third Countries and Coalitions
Trade-related climate measures that condition market access on carbon intensity often account for foreign carbon prices, as seen in the case of the EU CBAM. Accurately determining the carbon price paid abroad proves complex in ptactice, however. This analysis dissects alternative approaches, highlighting their implications …
The Economic Logic of Policies to Address Import Dependence in Clean Energy Goods
Rising geopolitical tensions and supply chain fragmentation have heightened concerns over import dependence, especially for clean energy technologies and critical raw materials vital to climate mitigation and economic growth. This paper examines when such dependence signals market failures, evaluates policy options' costs and benefits, and …
Europe’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism: From Design to Implementation
Chapter in the European Energy Law Report analysing the EU CBAM’s legislative evolution and adopted design, assessing legal and political economy rationales and highlighting practical implementation challenges in aligning trade exposure with EU ETS carbon costs.
Advancing the Energy Transition through Industrial Policy in the European Union and the United States: A Transatlantic Comparison
Book chapter comparing EU and US green industrial policy tools for the energy transition, highlighting institutional logics, subsidy instruments, and governance trade-offs, with implications for transatlantic coordination and policy learning.
Issues and Options for EU Emissions Trading after 2030: Summary of Literature Review, Interviews with Experts/Stakeholders and Stakeholder Survey
This report provides a comprehensively overview of strategic challenges and policy options for EU emissions trading in the 2030-2040 horizon.
Bridging the Divide: Assessing the Viability of International Cooperation on Border Carbon Adjustments
With various jurisdictions now contemplating Border Carbon Adjustments like the EU CBAM, there is a growing risk of divergent and uncoordinated approaches. This article assesses the prospects for international cooperation to mitigate uncertainty and transaction costs.
In the Vortex of Great Power Competition: Climate, Trade, and Geostrategic Rivalry in U.S.–China–EU Relations
Michael A. Mehling Harvard Project on Climate Agreements Discussion Paper. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2025. 53 pp. Global efforts to address climate change appear headed on a collision course with strategic self-interest and great power politics. Nowhere are these tensions more evident than at the …
Addressing Competitiveness Concerns of EU Exporters with Industrial Policy: The Role of Innovation Support
As the EU phases out free allocation under the ETS, European exports face new leakage risks not covered by CBAM. This article evaluates policy options to address this challenge, identifying targeted innovation support as the most promising solution to minimize legal risks while fostering decarbonization.
Pricing, Decarbonization, and Green New Deals
Evaluating recent criticism that carbon pricing has failed to drive transformative change, this article agrees that pricing alone is insufficient but argues against abandoning it. Instead, it proposes a framework for empirical evaluation, suggesting that even modest carbon taxes can support broader industrial policy strategies.
Operationalizing Article 6 of the Paris Agreement
Book chapter examining Article 6 governance debates and negotiating fault lines, reviewing emerging state practice and pilot cooperation, and analysing how implementation can proceed—and shape the framework—even amid incomplete operational decisions.
Subsidy-related Aspects of the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM)
Export-related leakage has emerged as a major concern under the European CBAM. This article explores policy solutions, situating design options alongside evolving EU decarbonization support and the constraints posed by WTO disciplines on subsidies and trade-related climate measures.
Industrial Policy, Populism and the Political Economy of Climate Action
Populist politics can both enable and endanger climate policy. This comment explores the political economy of populist climate action, emphasizing risks of protectionism and the need to pair domestic industrial strategy with credible pathways for cooperation.
Supporting the Transition to Climate-Neutral Production: An Evaluation Under the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures.
This article assesses key decarbonization support instruments under the WTO SCM Agreement, clarifying when they risk constituting actionable subsidies and how they may be designed to avoid conferring a benefit.
From Theory to Practice: Determining Emissions in Traded Goods under a Border Carbon Adjustment
This article explains why default-intensity BCAs can undermine carbon-pricing incentives, and evaluates an “individual adjustment” approach that uses actual emissions data while acknowledging administrative burdens, avoidance risks, and legal considerations under trade rules.
The Evolving Architecture of Global Climate Change Law
Book chapter mapping the changing architecture of global climate law, identifying seven structural trends across forums, commitments, differentiation, instruments, legislation, litigation, and nonstate actors, and drawing implications for diverse governance approaches.
The Carbon Market Challenge: Preventing Abuse through Effective Governance
This monograph synthesizes integrity risks and abuse pathways in carbon markets, illustrating jurisdictional examples and proposing governance safeguards to improve environmental integrity and cost effectiveness across market designs.
Governing Carbon Markets with Distributed Ledger Technologies
Edited collection analysing distributed ledger technology as a governance architecture for carbon markets, combining conceptual assessment, case studies, and implementation pathways to strengthen transparency, transaction integrity, and oversight.
Study on the Possibility to Set Up a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism on Selected Sectors
This study, commissioned by the European Commission's DG TAXUD, evaluates design options for an EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism across selected sectors, addressing objectives, scope choices, administrative feasibility, and likely economic and environmental effects.