CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A new study from current and former researchers at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs finds that reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transportation will be a much bigger challenge than conventional wisdom assumes — requiring substantially higher fuel prices combined with more stringent regulation.

With both China and the United States relying heavily on coal for electricity, senior government officials from both countries have urged immediate action to push forward technology that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired plants. They discussed possible actions at a high-level workshop in April jointly sponsored by the Belfer Center's Energy Technology Innovation Policy (ETIP) research group, China's Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Robert Stavins has launched the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements, a two-year effort to identify key design elements of a future international agreement on climate change. The project aims to help develop a plan that is “scientifically sound, economically rational, and politically pragmatic” and useful to both developing and developed countries.