Science, Technology, and Public Policy

Last week, President Trump signed a new executive order that paves the way to impose sanctions against any foreign bank that conducts business with North Korea, going well beyond current UN financial sanctions. These so-called secondary sanctions, which are penalties applied to third-party foreign banks (i.e., not directly against North Korean entities), are particularly focused on Chinese banks.

The Belfer Center began researching energy technology issues in the late 1990s. Its mission was “to determine and promote the adoption of effective strategies for developing and deploying cleaner and more efficient energy technologies that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce dependence on fossil fuels and stress on water resources, and improve economic development.”

In this issue, we look at the history and influence of the Center’s energy innovation efforts in the past two decades by focusing primarily on ETIP’s work in the U.S. and China.

As assistant to the president for science and technology, director of the White House Office for Science and Technology Policy, and co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), Holdren has worked closely with Obama to reinvigorate America’s scientific capabilities on a range of policy fronts, from climate change and renewable energy to health care and nanotechnology.

"Although this phased-approach to sanctions relief under the JCPOA ensures that Iran does not receive benefits without first implementing its nuclear commitments, uncertainties remain. The agreement does not affect U.S. and EU non-nuclear sanctions, such as those that target human rights abuses, support for terrorism, and money laundering. One question is whether or not relief from nuclear-related sanctions will affect the usefulness of non-nuclear sanctions."

"The surge in interest in Africa by China and India requires a different approach that does not view the continent as a helpless victim of foreign influence. To that end African countries are seeking to replace classical foreign policy that focuses on access to markets in return for raw materials with a new vision of economic diplomacy."

"The map of Africa as a hopeless collection of failing post-colonial economies is being redrawn before our very eyes. Credit should go to African leaders for their stubborn refusal to accept the future as predicted by others but to seek to change it. As they say, for Africa, the future is not what it used to be."

"There is widespread agreement that this long-term trend of grabbing the economic gains from information technology advances and ignoring their security costs has reached a crisis point," write Melissa Hathaway and Jack Goldsmith. "As we progress digitally, we must also adopt and embed sometimes-costly security solutions into our core infrastructures and enterprises and stop playing the game of chance."

As part of International Relations Week at Harvard, Calestous Juma, director of the Belfer Center's Science, Technology, and Globalization Project, delivered the keynote address on Tuesday, Oct. 23, at the Center for Government and International Studies.

"African presidents have now returned home from Accra, Ghana, after discussing a critical issue for the future of Africa: the creation of a United States of Africa at the urging of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi....Col Gaddafi has the right vision, but can correct his faulty strategy by helping to support the effective functioning of regional integration bodies, starting with northern and western Africa."