Environment and Natural Resources

This paper explores the unique conditions that made the Agreement to Prevent Unregulated High Seas Fisheries in the Central Arctic Ocean possible and examines how success was achieved by the interrelationships of science, policy, legal structures, politics, stakeholder collaboration, and diplomacy.

This paper provides an overview on the main impacts of biofuels production on water resources within the United States, with an emphasis on the corn-based ethanol market and the agricultural stage. The following issues are examined:

• the relationship between biofuel production and water availability;
• trends and policy options for future biofuel production and the tradeoffs for water scarcity;
• technological changes in transportation fleet, with consequential effects on biofuels demand and water resources;
• considerations for policy makers who seek to reduce the future impact of biofuels on water sustainability.

Kelly Sims Gallagher asserts that politicians' pledges of dramatic long-term reductions should not let them off the hook for their failure to achieve more modest progress in the short term.

At the Arctic Frontiers 2021 conference, Joel Clement delivered the keynote address for the "Building the future" panel. His inspirational speech was an ode to empowering youth and building a resilient Arctic — and a reflection on the discussions of the 2020 Arctic Resilience Forum.

This study provides a whole-systems simulation on how to halve global CO2 emissions by 2050, compared to 2010, with an emphasis on technologies and costs, in order to avoid a dangerous increase in the global mean surface temperature by end the of this century.

In 2019, the Belfer Center’s Arctic Initiative and the Wilson Center’s Polar Institute co-hosted a workshop with the Icelandic Chairmanship of the Arctic Council at Harvard Kennedy School entitled, Policy and Action on Plastic in the Arctic Ocean. This early-convening played a key role in fostering a policy discussion around tackling the problem of plastics in the Arctic Ocean. 

Now in 2021 the first global conference focused on plastic pollution in the Arctic Ocean, the International Symposium on Plastics in the Arctic and the Sub-Arctic Region,  will be hosted virtually in early March. Findings from the 2019 event will be featured as a keynote in the Symposium on Plastics in the Arctic and as part of the final panel on March 9, which is focused on the topic of “Ways Forward”. 

Fran Ulmer advocates for better U.S. federal Arctic coordination at home and abroad by detailing three steps that are a good first start.

Joel Clement writes that the nomination of Rep. Deb Haaland as Interior Secretary is a sea change for indigenous people  because it demonstrates the power of investing in indigenous leadership and institutions.

In a virtual ceremony today, the Environment and Natural Resources Program at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center presented its coveted bi-annual Roy Award for Environmental Partnership to Clean Water for Carolina Kids, a public-private partnership in North Carolina that protects children from exposure to lead from drinking water at childcare centers and schools. The ceremony was followed by a panel discussion, “Coalitions for Environmental Health and Justice: Lessons from the 2020 Roy Award.”  

Professor John P. Holdren made these remarks at a Harvard Kennedy School Energy Policy Seminar in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on November 2, 2020.