News & Announcements

Climate@HKSis a new online resource for navigating the full range of climate-related activity across Harvard Kennedy School's research centers, degree programs, and administrative departments.

Today, on the United Nations International Day of Peace, the Muhammad Ali Center announced the appointment of Ms. Farah Pandith as its first-ever Muhammad Ali Global Peace Laureate.

This study group will explore the role of the private sector in evolving energy systems, and how corporations might change in a climate constrained world. 

Jos Delbeke, Professor at the European University Institute in Florence and at the KU Leuven in Belgium, recounted the evolution of carbon pricing and voiced his optimism for further international efforts to combat climate change in the newest episode of “Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program.”

Environmental economists from Harvard, Yale, and other leading research institutions say an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposal that would eventually allow more mercury pollution from power plants relies on a cost-benefit analysis that is fatally flawed. In a new report, the economists detail how the EPA’s calculations inappropriately fail to consider how reducing mercury pollution provides tens of billions of dollars in health benefits to the American people.

Professor Joseph E. Aldy served as a a co-chair and author of this December 2019 report, which was commissioned by the External Environmental Economics Advisory Committee (E-EEAC).

Lord Nicholas Stern, one of the world’s most prominent climate change economists, told hundreds who gathered at the Geological Lecture Hall on the Harvard campus on October 15 that just as economic and technological change has brought us to this challenging moment in history, so too can it seed the solutions necessary to mitigate the impacts of global warming.

“Environmental Insights: Conversations on policy and practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program” is hosted by Robert Stavins, A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy and Economic Development at Harvard Kennedy School, and director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program.

Robert Stavins has written a brief intellectual biography of distinguished climate-change economist Martin Weitzman, who recently passed away. The essay appears on Stavins’ blog here, and also on VOX. See also a previous Harvard Project article on Weitzman’s passing here. Weitzman’s many contributions to the field of climate-change and broader environmental economics have changed the way scholars and policymakers approach the field. 

Faculty, scholars, and staff at the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements — with colleagues around the world — are deeply saddened by the loss of Martin L. Weitzman, recently retired professor of economics at Harvard University, who died unexpectedly on August 27, 2019. Weitzman’s contributions to climate-change — and broader environmental — economics and policy are considered extraordinarily important, within both academia and the policy community. He published widely, was elected as a fellow of the Econometric Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and for more than 25 years hosted with Robert Stavins the Harvard Seminar in Environmental Economics and Policy.

Egypt's only democratically elected president died on Monday while attending a court session in Cairo.