News & Announcements

HPCA and Director Robert Stavins played an active role at COP 28 in Dubai, which concluded on December 12 with an historic agreement calling for “transitioning away” from fossil fuels. Aside from moderating an official HPCA Side Event on reducing global methane emissions, Stavins also participated in several other panel discussions and forums on issues relating to the climate change negotiations as well as meetings with participants and journalists. Read more on HPCA’s activities in Dubai on our COP 28 Tumblr page.

The Harvard Project on Climate Agreements (HPCA) assembled a panel of leading academics and government officials to discuss strategies for achieving significant methane emissions reductions at relatively low costs at an official COP 28 Side Event last Wednesday (Dec. 6). The event, titled “Reducing Global Methane Emissions: Imperatives, Opportunities, and Challenges,” was moderated by HPCA Director Robert Stavins.

Efforts around and impacts of global methane-emissions abatement will be the focus at an official side event on December 6 co-sponsored by the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements at the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP-28) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Dubai. Harvard Project Director Robert Stavins will also participate in a number of other events at COP-28.

The White House announced today that President Joe Biden has nominated Kurt Campbell for Deputy Secretary of State. Campbell, recent Belfer Center Senior Fellow and former Assistant Director of the Center, is currently the National Security Council Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific. He is the architect of Biden’s China and Indo-Pacific strategy and advises the president on a range of policy issues related to Asia. 

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.

Marking one year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Belfer Center this week hosted Ukraine’s Foreign Minister for a discussion of the war and its significance for Ukraine and the world. In this special feature, we include video from Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba’s conversation with the Center’s Eric Rosenbach and Paula Dobriansky. We also include a report card on the war from Graham Allison and Kate Davidson, a policy brief from the Sexual Violence in Conflict project, interviews that highlight perspectives from the people of Ukraine and Russia, and new insights and perspectives from a range of experts on how the war is impacting global order as well as regions and people around the globe.

The Danish Minister of Climate, Energy, and Utilities expressed his hope that the tragic war in Ukraine will help accelerate the clean energy transformation by weaning Europe off Russian gas during a Virtual Forum (view recording here) last Friday (April 8). 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 risks of nuclear war are growing, but they still remain quite low,” Stephen Herzog tells the Tehran Times. For example, Herzog says, “Cold War examples show that some NATO or Russian troop deaths, or aircraft losses, will not result in a ‘Moscow-for-Washington’ strategic nuclear exchange.” While the Ukraine war is going on, some political observers warn about the expansion of war to other countries and a perilous confrontation between Russia and NATO.

“This has quickly become a conflict involving NATO. Western countries are providing weapons and intelligence to help Ukraine resist the Russian military,” Herzog, also an associate of Harvard University's Project on Managing the Atom, notes.

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. 

Heather Williams, a nuclear expert at King’s College London and visiting fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, said it was “totally ambiguous” but in keeping with a leader who has a history of being a “nuclear bully”. “It is classic Putin, creating ambiguity and uncertainty,” Williams said. “Putin is so good at that because he knows that it keeps people on edge.”