Events

Join us for an Energy Policy Seminar series featuring Leah Stokes, Anton Vonk Associate Professor of Environmental Politics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Stokes will give a talk on “Making Climate Policy: Why the Inflation Reduction Act Passed.” Q&A to follow. Buffet-style lunch will be served.

Registration: No RSVP is required. Seating will be on a first come, first served basis. The seminar will also be streamed via Zoom. Virtual attendees should register using the button below; upon registering, attendees will receive a confirmation email with a Zoom link.

Recording: The seminar will be recorded and available to watch on this page (typically one week later). Those who register for this event will automatically receive a link to the recording as soon as it becomes available.

Accessibility: To request accommodations or who have questions about access, please contact Liz Hanlon (ehanlon@hks.harvard.edu) in advance of the session.

Sponsors: The Belfer Center's Environment and Natural Resources Program, the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, the Harvard University Center for the Environment, the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability

Join us for an Energy Policy Seminar featuring Sarah Ladislaw, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Climate and Energy of the U.S. National Security Council. Ladislaw will give a talk on "U.S. International Climate and Energy Policy." Q&A to follow. Buffet-style lunch will be served.

Registration: No RSVP is required. Room capacity is limited and seating will be on a first come, first served basis. The seminar will also be streamed via Zoom. Virtual attendees should register using the button below; upon registering, attendees will receive a confirmation email with a Zoom link.

Recording: The seminar will be recorded and available to watch on this page (typically one week later). Those who register for this event will automatically receive a link to the recording as soon as it becomes available.

Accessibility: To request accommodations or who have questions about access, please contact Liz Hanlon (ehanlon@hks.harvard.edu) in advance of the session.

Sponsors: The Belfer Center's Environment and Natural Resources Program, the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, the Harvard University Center for the Environment, the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability

Please join the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program for an AI Cyber Lunch featuring Internet pioneer Scott Bradner. In a talk entitled "Section 702 and You: Who Is the NSA Watching?" Bradner will turn a critical eye on the provision of the 2008 FISA Amendments Act that permits the government to conduct targeted surveillance of foreign persons located outside the United States. Q&A to follow. Buffet-style lunch will be served.

Registration: No RSVP is required. Room capacity is limited and seating will be on a first come, first served basis. All are welcome to attend virtually via Zoom. Virtual attendees should register using the button below; upon registering, attendees will receive a confirmation email with a Zoom link.

Recording: Please be advised that this seminar will not be recorded. The event organizers prohibit any attendees, including journalists, from audio/visual recording or distributing parts or all of the event program without prior written authorization.

Accessibility: To request accommodations or for questions about access, please contact Liz Hanlon (ehanlon@hks.harvard.edu) in advance of the session.

Generative AI has taken the world by storm, and the widespread use of ChatGPT has created significant demand for responsible development and deployment of large language models. At the same time, AI has become a central part of the geopolitical conflict between the US and China, with the US blocking China’s access to the semiconductors needed to train LLMs. The competition to “win the AI race” has led countries to water down AI regulations out of fear that they might reduce the innovation of their national champions. How can governments promote responsible generative AI in the context of great power competition? Kevin Klyman, a researcher at Stanford’s Center for Research on Foundation Models and Belfer’s Avoiding Great Power War, will present his research on the geopolitics of large language models. 

Background Reading: “The Foundation Model Transparency Index”  and “Biden Takes Measured Approach on China Investment Controls”
 

Concerns about the adverse impacts of per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) on environmental and human health are rising. Used in thousands of products since the 1940s, these so-called "forever chemicals" don't degrade easily in the environment or the human body. In response, governments around the world are accelerating efforts to regulate their use.

Please join the Environment and Natural Resources Program for a seminar featuring Mary Gade and Kathleen Cantillon, Principals at Environmental Stakeholder Strategies. Drawing from their work on a PFAS contamination site in Wisconsin, Gade and Cantillon will discuss the issues facing regulators in addressing this emerging challenge, as well as potential solutions being explored by communities, companies, water utilities, and wastewater management systems.

Registration: Please RSVP using the button below. Upon registering, virtual attendees will receive a confirmation email with a Zoom link. 

Recording: The seminar will be recorded and available to watch on this page (typically one week later). Those who register for this event will automatically receive a link to the recording as soon as it becomes available.

Accessibility: To request accommodations or for questions about access, please contact Liz Hanlon (ehanlon@hks.harvard.edu) in advance of the session.

Join us for an Energy Policy Seminar featuring Ana Unruh Cohen, Senior Director for NEPA, Infrastructure and Clean Energy at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Unruh Cohen will give a talk on "Permitting Progress in Support of U.S. Clean Energy and Climate Goals." Q&A to follow. Buffet-style lunch will be served.

Registration: No RSVP is required. Room capacity is limited and seating will be on a first come, first served basis. The seminar will also be streamed via Zoom. Virtual attendees should register using the button below; upon registering, attendees will receive a confirmation email with a Zoom link. 

Recording: The seminar will be recorded and available to watch on this page (typically one week later). Those who register for this event will automatically receive a link to the recording as soon as it becomes available.

Accessibility: To request accommodations or for questions about access, please contact Liz Hanlon (ehanlon@hks.harvard.edu) in advance of the session.

Sponsors: The Belfer Center's Environment and Natural Resources Program, the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, the Harvard University Center for the Environment, the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability

Climate change is a healthcare emergency.

This seminar will highlight the efforts of physicians from Massachusetts General Hospital’s Division of Space, Ecological, Arctic, and Resource Limited Medicine to create a program of health monitoring with colleagues in the Northwest Arctic Borough of Alaska to quantify and qualify the impacts of climate change on human health through the lens of emergency medical care. The project, led by Arctic Initiative Faculty Affiliate Dr. N. Stuart Harris and nominated for the prestigious 2023 Frederik Paulsen Arctic Academic Action Award, seeks to inform scientific and policy priorities for protecting the health of Arctic populations in a warming world and to create a scalable model for assessing the health impacts of climate change that could be deployed to healthcare settings nationally and internationally.

Registration: No RSVP is required. Room capacity is limited and seating will be on a first come, first served basis. The seminar will also be streamed via Zoom. Virtual attendees should register using the button below; upon registering, attendees will receive a confirmation email with a Zoom link. 

Recording: The seminar will be recorded and available to watch on this page (typically one week later). Those who register for this event will automatically receive a link to the recording as soon as it becomes available.

Accessibility: To request accommodations or for questions about access, please contact Liz Hanlon (ehanlon@hks.harvard.edu) in advance of the session.

Join us for an Energy Policy Seminar featuring Joseph Majkut, Director of the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Majkut will give a talk entitled "Can the United States Lead Global Decarbonization?" Q&A to follow. Buffet-style lunch will be served.

Registration: No RSVP is required. Room capacity is limited and seating will be on a first come, first served basis. The seminar will also be streamed via Zoom. Virtual attendees should register using the button below; upon registering, attendees will receive a confirmation email with a Zoom link. 

Recording: The seminar will be recorded and available to watch on this page (typically one week later). Those who register for this event will automatically receive a link to the recording as soon as it becomes available.

Accessibility: To request accommodations or for questions about access, please contact Liz Hanlon (ehanlon@hks.harvard.edu) in advance of the session.

Sponsors: The Belfer Center's Environment and Natural Resources Program, the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, the Harvard University Center for the Environment, the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability

Putin’s war in Ukraine, Russian election meddling, deep-cover Russian “illegal” spies in the West, disinformation, overhead spy balloons, and assassinations—subjects that all make regular news headlines. When they do so, however, those headlines frequently lack their proper, long-term, context.

To bring historical perspective to these national security issues at the frontline of contemporary geopolitics, join the Belfer Center’s Intelligence Project for the launch of Calder Walton’s book, SPIES. The Epic Intelligence War between East and West, being published on June 6.

Described by Fiona Hill as “essential reading” and a “masterclass in twentieth century and contemporary history,” and by Christopher Andrew as a “masterpiece,” SPIES explores the clandestine struggle that has been raging between Russia and Western powers for a hundred years and counting. Its conclusions, however, go further than Russia in the past: they relate to the current unfolding intelligence conflict between China and the West. Chinese intelligence has taken up the mantle of the KGB— but taken espionage to new levels.

Calder Walton will present the principal findings of his book, followed by a  Question & Answer session with incoming Intelligence Project Director incoming Project Director Mark Pascale and Intelligence Project Fellows including Beth Sanner, Norman T. Roule, Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, Kristin Wood, and Jeff Fields.

This virtual event will take place on June 5 at 4:00PM EST. Calder Walton’s remarks will be on the record, but the Q&A will be under Chatham House rules. It will be open to the public, but registration is required. RSVP at the link below:

Speaker: Michael Falcone, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

This presentation will examine how today's model of superpowers as science-powers stemmed from highly contingent historical processes — a whole paradigm of global competition that emerged from a specific set of transatlantic personal networks and rivalries in the 1940s. It will also explore how the United States built its high-tech identity by siphoning other countries' intellectual property and state-science models, much as it charges China with doing today. Finally, it will deconstruct what scholars and policymakers alike really refer to when use the fuzzy concepts of nations being "ahead" or "behind" their technological rivals.

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Please register in advance for this seminar:
https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMpdOisqT4iGNB1X9jxHKY-xh-B5Vc-QmgP