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.

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. 

Professor Robert Stavins is profiled and interviewed by Ingmar Schumacher, Professor of Economics at IPAG Business School in Paris, France, at website, “Top Environmental Economists,” including a brief video interview, and a much more extensive written version.

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.

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.