Environment and Natural Resources

Last week, CNN reported that Hanoi, alongside with Bangkok and Hawaii l, has been shortlisted by the United States as possible venue for a second summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un. At the same time, citing an anonymous South Korean diplomat, the Korean Herald put Hanoi, Hawaii, and Singapore instead of Bangkok as top candidates for the follow-up meeting between the leaders of the United States and North Korea after their historic talk in Singapore last year. According to another South Korean newspaper, the Munhwa Ilbo, it was also Hanoi where American and North Korean officials met recently to discuss the planning for this event.

Is North Korea serious about denuclearizing in exchange for a new peace architecture on the Korean Peninsula? Analysts are split on the matter. Many reject the possibility out of hand, insisting that the regime views nuclear weapons as essential to its identity and security for the indefinite future. Others point to North Korea’s security environment as the root cause of its perceived need for nuclear weapons, and suggest that if its hostile environment were to change, the regime might be less committed to remaining a nuclear weapons state.

With the rapid growth of electric vehicles in China, their benefits should be scientifically identified to support the industry development. Although the life cycle benefits of electric vehicles have been analyzed worldwide, the recycling phase has not been fully studied yet, especially in China. Therefore, this study focuses on the economic and environmental benefits of electric vehicle recycling in China. Based on the technology adopted by leading enterprises, the gross income and reduction of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are calculated to reveal the benefits.

Joel Clement explains the long-standing practice of “compensatory mitigation” and why it has the support of Western-state governors.

As the single largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world and the source of almost 30 percent of the CO2 released into our atmosphere, China faces an enormous challenge in reaching its goal of zero or negative emissions—known as deep decarbonization.

Henry Lee, Director of the Environment and Natural Resources Program (ENRP), and Dan Schrag, Co-Director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, head a team of researchers from the U.S. and China who have been examining China’s work in achieving deep decarbonization in the People’s Republic. The team plans to publish its findings in a book to be released in 2019. 

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.

Professor John P. Holdren gave this presentation at the Session on 60 Years of Arctic & Antarctic Science at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C., on December 13, 2018.

Indigenous communities are facing multiple challenges from a changing climate across the circumpolar North. In this episode, two experts with extensive experience in the American Arctic—former senior Interior Department official Joel Clement and Nicole Misarti of University of Alaska—discuss with Polar Geopolitics the array of impacts affecting native Alaskan communities, and what measures are being taken to build resilience and adapt to climate change.

The deep divide within the NPT community over disarmament will make it difficult, if not impossible, to make progress on U.S. non-proliferation goals in the near term and eventually may cause the treaty to lose relevance as non-nuclear states reconsider the treaty’s value.

Joel Clement discusses Federal Lands Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sequestration in the United States: Estimates for 2005–2014, a recently released report by the U.S. Department of the Interior.