News & Announcements

Environmental policy experts discussed China’s energy policies during an event at the Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs on April 10, 2023. The event featured Weila Gong, a Belfer Center postdoctoral research fellow, and Georgetown University professor Joanna I. Lewis, who discussed their joint research exploring China’s coal consumption, its pledge to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, and the political and economic factors hindering the country’s transition away from coal.

 The Future of Coal Regions Study Group, co-sponsored by the Belfer Center's Environment and Natural Resources Program and the Wiener Center's Reimagining the Economy Project, will travel to coalfield regions in West Virginia on a trek led by Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics Resident Fellow 2022 and former West Virginia Secretary of State Natalie Tennant.

On December 3, 2022, Nicola De Blasio, Senior Fellow with the Belfer Center’s Environment and Natural Resources Program (ENRP), chaired a panel discussion, “Is Hydrogen Our Future?,” at the Rome MED – Mediterranean Dialogue (Rome MED), an annual high-level conference on Mediterranean geopolitics. The panel discussion was part of ENRP’s Future of Hydrogen project’s ongoing engagement with global policymakers, who are increasingly viewing hydrogen as a solution to meeting their decarbonization and energy security goals. 

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. 

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.

The Inaugural episode of HEEP’s “Environmental Insights” podcast, featuring Gina McCarthy, gives a sense of what President-Elect Biden’s forthcoming climate-change-policy objectives might look like. Biden intends to appoint McCarthy as senior White House adviser on climate change, focusing on domestic policy.

Former White House advisor Jason Bordoff, professor and founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), says the incoming Biden-Harris Administration will have the opportunity to both lift the nation out of recession and combat global climate change by crafting a thoughtful economic stimulus plan containing a significant green energy investment component.

As Congress and the Trump Administration continue discussions surrounding a second major COVID-19 economic relief bill, many observers are arguing that any eventual economic recovery package ought to include green energy initiatives to help the United States move along a path toward a zero-carbon emissions future.  Drawing upon his White House experience, Joseph Aldy, professor of the practice of public policy at Harvard Kennedy School and formerly a Special Assistant to the President for Energy and Environment during the Obama Administration, shared his perspectives on October 19 on lessons learned from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that policymakers can apply to future economic stimulus negotiations.

In a new essay published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, HKS Professor Robert Stavins and MIT Sloan School of Management Professor Emeritus Richard Schmalensee argue that economists and policymakers alike will need to re-frame their thinking for addressing the nation’s current environmental challenges, including climate change, to overcome the tremendous political hurdles that now exist.

Join us for a special recording of the Climate One podcast and radio show at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, featuring Harvard's John Holdren and Gina McCarthy and hosted by Greg Dalton.