News & Announcements

The Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University launched today a major research and outreach initiative to reduce global methane emissions. The initiative seeks meaningful and sustained progress in global methane-emissions reductions through research and effective engagement with government policymakers — and with key stakeholders in business, nongovernmental organizations, and international institutions.

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.

As climate change and economic activity in the region accelerate in the Bering Strait region, the United States and Russia have a common interest in mitigating these shared environmental risks. A November workshop hosted by Harvard Kennedy School’s Arctic Initiative, the Wilson Center’s Polar Institute, and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) brought together seventeen experts to explore potential actions that the United States and Russia could pursue, jointly or independently, to protect the Bering Strait’s sensitive marine ecosystem and coastal communities. 

China recently launched the world’s largest emissions trading market, but it is just one component of the nation’s ambitious efforts to curb the rise in greenhouse-gas emissions. That was the message delivered on Thursday (July 22) by Carnegie Mellon University Associate Professor Valerie Karplus during a Virtual Forum 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.

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.

CAMBRIDGE, MA –The Environment and Natural Resources Program at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs announced today that Clean Water for Carolina Kids is the winner of the 2020 Roy Family Award for Environmental Partnership. The partnership of RTI International, NC Child, the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, and the North Carolina Division of Public Health protects children and infants from exposure to lead from drinking water at child care centers and schools.

Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, University Professor at Columbia University, shared his thoughts on carbon pricing, the post-pandemic economic recovery, and green economy transition during a virtual forum on September 8 sponsored by the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, and hosted by Robert Stavins, A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy and Economic Development at Harvard Kennedy School.

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).

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.