News & Announcements

12 Items

Press Release

A Global Symposium on Plastics in the Arctic

| Feb. 26, 2021

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”. 

Panelists Marshall Ganz, HKS (L); Julia Liou, Asian Health Services; Matthew Tejada, U.S. EPA; Natalicia Tracy, Brazilian Worker Center; Trip Van Noppen, Earthjustice

Bennett Craig, Belfer Center

News

Healthier Nail Salons

    Author:
  • Jessica Colarossi
| Nov. 21, 2016

For more than a decade, the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative has sought to improve the health, safety, and rights of low-paid, vulnerable immigrant workers in a poorly regulated part of the beauty care industry. A recent Harvard Kennedy School panel discussion on "Toxic Beauty: Environmental Justice and Workers' Rights," featured the innovative California initiative and its selection as the winner of the 2016 Roy Family Award for Environmental Partnership.

News - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

COP-21 & The Pathway to Paris

January 2016

Climate change is a global problem that will require global solutions. Harvard Kennedy School expects to be a part of the solution through the development of academically rigorous research and ideas, and by engaging policymakers, non-governmental actors, practitioners, scholars, and others from around the world.

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News - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Divestment Debate: Should Harvard Divest from Fossil Fuels?

| May 8, 2015

Should Harvard divest its financial holdings in fossil fuel companies to help address the climate change crisis? In the first Kennedy School public debate on this controversial issue, two prominent Harvard professors recently addressed that question, presenting arguments for and against joining the global divestment campaign.

News - Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, Belfer Center

Legal and Policy Perspectives on EPA's Proposed Clean Power Plan

    Author:
  • Louisa Lund
| October 6, 2014

Is EPA's proposal for regulating carbon emissions from existing sources a reasonable interpretation of the Clean Air Act, likely to lead to significant environmental benefits at reasonable economic cost, or is it an overly complex overreach, likely to be overturned by the courts or abandoned by a future president?  In a discussion moderated by Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government Robert Stavins, David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Jeffrey Holmstead of Bracewell & Giuliani discussed their differing views of EPA's proposed rule.

News

New Study: "The Shale Oil Boom: a U.S. Phenomenon"

| June 27, 2013

CAMBRIDGE, MA – The dramatic surge in U.S. shale oil production could more than triple the current American output of shale oil to five million barrels a day by 2017, which would likely make the United States the No. 1 oil producer in the world, according to a new study by a researcher at Harvard Kennedy School.

Leonardo Maugeri, a former oil industry executive from Italy who is a fellow at the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, studied the performance of 4,000 American shale oil wells and the work of about 100 companies involved in shale oil production.

In a paper titled “The Shale Oil Boom: A U.S. Phenomenon,” Maugeri wrote that the unique characteristics of shale oil production are ideal for the United States -- and unlikely to be mirrored elsewhere in the world. These factors include the availability of drilling rigs, and the entrepreneurial nature of the American exploration and production  industry,  both critical for the thousands of wells required for shale oil exploitation.

News - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Harvard Kennedy School Honors a Very Cool Idea

| May 9, 2011

On May 4, Greenpeace Solutions Director Amy Larkin joined high-level officials of Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, McDonald’s, Unilever, and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) at Harvard Kennedy School to receive the School’s prestigious Roy Family Award for Environmental Partnership for their collaboration, called Refrigerants, Naturally!

News

Japan's nuclear crisis deepens

| Mar. 18, 2011

As Japan's nuclear safety commission upgrades the situation at the earthquake-damaged Fukushima plant to a level five on the seven-level International Nuclear Events Scale, the country's prime minister says circumstances remain grave.



Justin Dargin, nuclear analyst and research fellow at the Dubai initiative, tells Al Jazeera of the wider implications of Japan's ongoing emergency