Environment & Climate Change

To accelerate the global transition to a low-carbon economy, all energy systems and sectors must be actively decarbonized. While hydrogen has been a staple in the energy and chemical industries for decades, renewable hydrogen is drawing increased attention today as a versatile and sustainable energy carrier with the potential to play an important piece in the carbon-free energy puzzle. Countries around the world are piloting new projects and policies, yet adopting hydrogen at scale will require innovating along the value chains; scaling technologies while significantly reducing costs; deploying enabling infrastructure; and defining appropriate national and international policies and market structures.

What are the general principles of how renewable hydrogen may reshape the structure of global energy markets? What are the likely geopolitical consequences such changes would cause? A deeper understanding of these nascent dynamics will allow policy makers and corporate investors to better navigate the challenges and maximize the opportunities that decarbonization will bring, without falling into the inefficient behaviors of the past.

For decades, Singapore has been a premier refinery hub and gatekeeper between Asia and the Middle East, but its position is increasingly threatened as producer countries are shifting into the downstream activities that helped make Singapore the “Houston of Asia”. Oil and petrochemicals drive about one quarter of Singapore’s net exports. Greater competition in the global oil and gas value chain could take a heavy toll on the city-state’s national budget and economic growth prospects.

Shaughnessy and Joel Clement, Senior Fellow at the Union of Concerned Scientists and former Director of the Office of Policy Analysis at the U.S. Department of the Interior, talk about blowing the whistle on former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke for his efforts to purge the agency of government scientists working to address climate change in the Trump Administration.

The Belfer Center's Arctic Initiative is selecting a small group of 2–3 Harvard students to present their ideas at the Arctic Innovation Lab in Iceland. The Lab takes place at the world's largest Arctic gathering, the Arctic Circle Assembly, from October 10–13, 2019.  The application deadline is Friday, September 6, 2019.

Stephen Walt explores the scenario of states intervening in a foreign country in order to prevent it from causing irreversible and possibly catastrophic harm to the environment.

This chapter focuses on the most obvious but elusive challenge of integrating irrigation and agriculture in Punjab and explores the essential nexus of water and food. It uses a combination of historical, institutional, and statistical analyses to investigate how integrated food and water planning can be achieved in Punjab.