ColdHubs, an innovative Nigerian agricultural enterprise that uses solar-powered refrigerated storage units to keep food from spoiling, is slowly but surely expanding to nearby West African countries. But it faces big challenges to scale up and finance its operations, company founder and CEO Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu told a Harvard Kennedy School audience celebrating the 2022 Roy Award winner.

The Environment and Natural Resources Program at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs announced today that ColdHubs Limited is the winner of the 2022 Roy Family Award for Environmental Partnership. The company—born out of a partnership between the Smallholders Foundation, the Institute for Air Handling and Refrigeration (ILK Dresden), and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)—uses solar-powered walk-in cold rooms to reduce post-harvest losses for smallholder farmers across rural Nigeria.

In an interview with The Harvard Gazette, Henry Lee welcomes California's aggressive move toward electric vehicles, but sees one ‘huge mistake’ policymakers need to avoid and a surefire way to anger drivers.
 

In an essay for Harvard Kennedy School Magazine, Henry Lee argues the policies China is pursuing to wean itself off reliance on fossil fuels may also benefit its quest for greater energy security.

Surging demand and dizzying price hikes have raised concerns that inadequate metal and mineral supplies may impede the clean energy transition. Given the urgency of reducing fossil fuel use, the science and policy worlds must solve two main challenges: how to ensure the availability and affordability of critical metals in the quantities needed, and how to manage the environmental impacts related to mining and processing them. The latter issue is likely to be much trickier than the former, argue Henry Lee and Xin Sun.

This chapter investigates the durability of partnership arrangements and their adaptability as a key condition for partnership effectiveness and long-term sustainability. Using a 16-year database consisting of partnership initiatives selected as finalists for the Roy Family Award for Environmental Partnership, as well as case studies of the Noel Kempff Climate Action Project, Mexico City Metrobús, and Alianza Shire, Amanda Sardonis and Henry Lee show that partnership adaptability is a determinant of partnership effectiveness and is intrinsically linked to partnership structuring.

In February and March, Belfer Center Student Fellow Winnona DeSombre and Environment and Natural Resources Program Director Henry Lee testified before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission in Washington, D.C. During separate hearings on China’s capabilities and plans related to cyber and to energy, DeSombre and Lee recommended actions Congress should take for the U.S. to remain competitive with China.

Institutional reforms are key to China tackling climate change. More are needed to secure a low-carbon future, write Henry Lee and Daniel Schrag.

An excerpt from a chapter in the forthcoming Lincoln Institute book Infrastructure Economics and Policy: International Perspectives, which includes contributions from leading international academics and practitioners addressing the latest approaches to infrastructure policy, implementation, and finance.

On March 17, 2022, Henry Lee testified before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission during the Hearing on China's Energy Plans and Practices. Read his full testimony here.