Policy Briefs & Testimonies

The Federal Government has many tools at its disposal to advance energy technology innovation. It can signal markets, for example, through energy tax and regulatory policy ("market pull"), and it can advance research, development, and deployment of energy technologies ("technology push"). Both of these kinds of tools can be effective, but the most effective policy portfolio balances a combination of these policies.

"...[A]ssessing the bioterrorism threat coming from the life sciences requires a broad range of expertise and information. A better analysis of such threats would involve relevant analysts within the intelligence community engaging with a range of social science experts. Such experts could provide information about terrorist intentions, motivations, and capabilities, as well as a more nuanced understanding of the difficulties involved in replicating scientific experiments and utilizing them for terrorist purposes."

The United States needs a revolution in energy technology innovation to meet the profound economic, environmental, and national security challenges that energy poses in the 21st century. Researchers at Harvard Kennedy School undertook a three-year project to develop actionable recommendations for transforming the U.S. energy innovation system. This research has led to five key recommendations for accelerating U.S. energy innovation.

"The United States has been a leading light in agricultural biotechnology as a platform technology and continues to serve as an important role model for countries around the seeking to address global food challenges. A key source of this leadership has been its commitment to using a science-led regulatory system for determining the approval of new products. The rest of the world needs this demonstrated leadership now more than ever given rising food prices and related political unrests around the world. Failure on the part of the United States to champion agricultural biotechnology will undermine confidence in the ability of the global community to confront the challenges of food security. Retracting from using science and technology to address emerging challenges will not result in any savings; it will only defer problems and future costs are likely to be higher."

Dramatic growth in nuclear energy would be required for nuclear power to provide a significant part of the carbon-free energy the world is likely to need in the 21st century, or a major part in meeting other energy challenges. This would require increased support from governments, utilities, and publics around the world. Achieving that support is likely to require improved economics and major progress toward resolving issues of nuclear safety, proliferation-resistance, and nuclear waste management. This is likely to require both research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) of improved technologies and new policy approaches.

With regard to developing a new international framework, developed countries should acknowledge how grave the consequences would be to easily give in to a Kyoto extension. Merely extending the Kyoto Protocol would surely delay mitigation actions on the part of developing countries and discourage the U.S. from making serious efforts to reduce its large energy consumption. In other words, no country should end up being a "climate-killer" in its attempts to avoid being called a "Kyoto-killer."

The United States needs to transform the way it produces and uses energy. This will require the improvement of current technologies and the development of new ones. To achieve the maximum payoff for public investments in energy technology innovation, the United States will need to improve and better align the management and structure of existing and new energy innovation institutions, and better connect R&D to demonstration and deployment. In this policy memo, the authors discuss three general and important recommendations for thinking about different initiatives, and we discuss the merits and challenges of current and new institutions, and the remaining gaps in the U.S. energy innovation system.

Our proposal for a post-2012 international global climate policy agreement contains three essential elements: meaningful involvement by key industrialized and developing nations; an emphasis on an extended time path of targets; and inclusion of market-based policy instruments. This architecture is consistent with fundamental aspects of the science, economics, and politics of global climate change.

Testimony of Calestous Juma before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, Hearing on Food Security in Africa: The Impact of Agricultural Development