News & Announcements

The upcoming 2023 G20 summit scheduled in New Delhi will convene leaders representing the world's major economies will convene to deliberate and strategize about imminent environmental and economic challenges. The overarching theme of "One Earth" will serve as a clarion call for unity and collective responsibility, underscoring the urgency of collaborative endeavors. Participating nations will engage in open dialogues, deliberating the adoption of cleaner energy sources, advancing circular economic models, and fortifying support mechanisms for marginalized communities grappling with environmental transformations.

A number Belfer Center experts are available to discuss the G20, its policy discussions, and any commitments announced.

Apekshya Prasai, a political science doctoral candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was recently named a 2023 Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Emerging Scholar.   The Emerging Scholars (nine in all) are doctoral candidates who are in the final year of writing dissertations on the nature of and responses to violence around the world.

While stating that climate change is a “huge problem” in need of innovative solutions, Louisiana Congressman Garret Graves (R-6th district) made the case for bridging political divides by aligning environmental sustainability with economic sustainability during a Virtual Forum (view recording here) on Thursday (March 10). The event was hosted by the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements (HPCA) and moderated by Robert Stavins, HPCA Director and A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy and Economic Development. 

As Russia's war on Ukraine continues and much of the world distances itself from Putin's violent attack on a democratic country, China's President Xi embraces Putin and his actions—a complete reversal of what former President Richard Nixon engineered with China's Chairman Mao 50 years ago.

In The Great Wager, a five-part documentary-style podcast, Belfer Center Fellow and China correspondent and bureau chief in Beijing for The New York Times from 2012 to 2019, joins with WBUR “Here and Now” host Scott Tong to peel back the curtain on Nixon’s historic trip to China in February 1972. They provide details about what happened—off-the-books meetings, divulged military secrets, spies, subterfuge, and a never-before reported secret visit to the CIA headquarters where the Chinese were shown maps of where spy stations would be located in China. 

The Biden Administration is showing a renewed commitment to addressing climate change, but there is still a long road ahead for the development of substantive domestic policies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. That was one of the messages delivered on Friday (April 30) during a Virtual Forum hosted by the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements.

On April 7, the Future of Diplomacy Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center was honored to welcome President Bill Clinton to Harvard as the featured speaker at the inaugural Stephen W. Bosworth Memorial Lecture in Diplomacy. The virtual event featured opening remarks by Harvard President Larry Bacow and a video tribute to the late Ambassador Bosworth, who was an active and beloved member of the Belfer Center community for a number of years. A closing video featured comments by Ambassador Bosworth’s widow, Christine Bosworth, and their grandson.

Former President Bill Clinton gave the inaugural Stephen W. Bosworth Memorial Lecture in Diplomacy in honor of the late, much admired U.S. ambassador on Wednesday. He recalled some of his major foreign policy triumphs and challenges with Russia, China, and North Korea in a conversation with Professor Nicholas Burns. 

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”. 

The International Security Program at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Security Studies Program at MIT invite applications for a two-year pre- or post-doctoral fellowship in Grand Strategy, Security, and Statecraft. The program is supported by a grant from the Charles Koch Foundation and is open to applicants from political science, history, and other relevant disciplines. It is intended to support research addressing fundamental issues of U.S. grand strategy, foreign policy, and America’s role in the world, and we are especially interested in projects that are likely to broaden the contemporary debate on these topics.

In a virtual ceremony today, the Environment and Natural Resources Program at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center presented its coveted bi-annual Roy Award for Environmental Partnership to Clean Water for Carolina Kids, a public-private partnership in North Carolina that protects children from exposure to lead from drinking water at childcare centers and schools. The ceremony was followed by a panel discussion, “Coalitions for Environmental Health and Justice: Lessons from the 2020 Roy Award.”