Science, Technology, and Public Policy

Alaska is an important region for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), given the
Department’s statutory authority and responsibilities. This reality applies with particular force to the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), with its jurisdiction over fisheries enforcement, drug interdiction, marine safety, oil spill response, search and rescue, and more. This policy brief provides an overview of the challenges facing the USCG in its domains of operation around Alaska—the Arctic Ocean, the North Pacific Ocean, the Bering Sea, the
Chukchi Sea, and the adjacent communities.

Legal scholar Andrey Todorov, Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Arctic Initiative, reflects on the recent agreement reached by United Nations delegates to protect biodiversity in international waters and its implications for the Arctic. 

As climate change and economic activity in the region accelerate in the Bering Strait region, the United States and Russia have a common interest in mitigating these shared environmental risks. A November workshop hosted by Harvard Kennedy School’s Arctic Initiative, the Wilson Center’s Polar Institute, and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) brought together seventeen experts to explore potential actions that the United States and Russia could pursue, jointly or independently, to protect the Bering Strait’s sensitive marine ecosystem and coastal communities. 

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.

Joel Clement writes that while climate change is a scientific matter, climate action is a political one, and, if done right, can usher in dramatic social, economic and ecological improvements.

Ian Masters and Joel Clement assess how much time has been lost by governments in facing the looming crisis of climate change, in particular here in the U.S. where the last four years were not only wasted, but were steps backwards from the urgent challenges made clear by yesterday's alarming IPCC report.

Joel Clement describes the influence of U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Joe Manchin over the Department of the Interior and advises that a forward-looking legislator in a fossil-fuel state would be wise to fight aggressively for financial commitments to make the people in their state part of the vanguard of the new clean energy economy, rather than set back the U.S. economy by fighting the inevitable energy transition itself.

Joel Clement characterizes the growing greenhouse-gas emissions from the commercial shipping industry as well as the efforts of the United Nations body, the International Maritime Organization, to reduce these emissions as unacceptable.

Joel Clement outlines why he is vexed by global negligence with regards to investments in the fossil fuel industry.

Joel Clement urges that addressing the inevitable impacts of climate change requires a national resilience strategy, substantial investments to reduce risk, and policies that address and communicate climate risk to Americans.