Environment and Natural Resources

New Haven, Connecticut is a city of about130,000 people—a typical American city in terms of size and challenges. One of the major and growing challenges facing New Haven and other cities is flooding. Increasingly extreme rainstorms and rising sea levels, both caused by climate change, are taxing local drainage systems and destroying vulnerable neighborhoods. An innovative partnership in New Haven is responding by building bioswales, a cost-effective green infrastructure that reduces pollution and urban flooding in a major rainstorm.

The New York Times’ Energy and Environment Correspondent Coral Davenport covers environmental policy in a way that goes beyond the conventional boundaries of Washington-based reporting to the larger, all-encompassing impact of climate change issues on a human and dollars-and-cents scale.

The Belfer Center’s Energy Technology Innovation Policy group is co-organizing a major workshop with China’s Tsinghua University on “Energy Technology Innovation on the “Backdrop of the U.S./China Emissions Deal.” Belfer Center’s Professors Laura Diaz Anadon, Henry Lee and Venky Narayanamurti are planning the June event with Tsinghua University Professor Su Jun, a former Science, Technology, and Public Policy fellow.

Dongsheng Wu has an important role in the development and implementation of China's plans to reduce carbon emissions and, subsequently, climate change. As director of the Department of Climate Change at the Shanxi Provincial Development and Reform Commission, Wu is responsible for developing a greenhouse gas emissions policy for Shanxi, a region with the highest coal production and highest energy intensity in China.

Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) doctoral student Daniel Velez Lopez is researching air pollution in Mexico and whether the country is willing to pay the costs to reduce it. HKS student Jennifer Kao is interviewing academics, investors, and government officials working to generate and commercialize clean energy innovations in the United Kingdom.

For Cristine Russell, a senior fellow in the Belfer Center’s Environment and Natural Resources Program (ENRP), life is turning full circle.

She started her career in Washington D.C. writing about science, environment, and health issues. Now she’s on the academic side analyzing the work of her peers. She’s a female journalist, who now hosts discussions on the influence of women in science media.

Planting a forest to improve air quality may prove to be as cost-effective as expensive new pollution control equipment, according to preliminary results from a novel experiment at a Freeport, Texas chemical plant. Officials involved in the study say this innovative approach could become a test case before the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which has identified reforestation as a potential air quality improvement strategy.

"Since 1999, the Roy Family has been supporting environmental research and projects coordinated by the Belfer Center’s Environment and Natural Resources Program (ENRP). In early May, ENRP gave special thanks to the Roy Family at a special reception where they also announced the most recent recipients of Roy Family internship and fellowship awards."

The Roy Family Summer Environmental Internship supports returning Kennedy School students interested in specific internships for public, private, or non-profit organizations abroad or in the United States.  These paid scholarships allow students to participate in innovative summer projects that would ordinarily not offer a salary.  There are four award recipients for 2012, and each received a $6,500 stipend to work with organizations that are not able to hire an intern.