Asia & the Pacific

The Belfer Center began researching energy technology issues in the late 1990s. Its mission was “to determine and promote the adoption of effective strategies for developing and deploying cleaner and more efficient energy technologies that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce dependence on fossil fuels and stress on water resources, and improve economic development.”

In this issue, we look at the history and influence of the Center’s energy innovation efforts in the past two decades by focusing primarily on ETIP’s work in the U.S. and China.

With a team of scientists, engineers, and political scientists, the Center’s Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program (STPP) and Energy Technology Innovation Policy group (ETIP) are tackling critical global issues related to energy challenges and water-energy connections. During the past few months, STPP/ETIP faculty, fellows, and visiting scholars have conducted research, made presentations, and held high-level discussions in the U.S., China, and the Gulf region.The work is a joint effort of STPP and the Belfer Center’s Environment and Natural Resources Program (ENRP) along with Harvard Kennedy School’s Sustainability Science Program.

A small sampling of Belfer Center perspectives on the future of North Korean politics.

John Park, a senior research associate at the U.S. Institute of Peace and currently a visiting fellow with the Belfer Center's International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom, recently sat down with for a one-on-one interview where he talked about his work with the Center and his contributions to the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit.

In the modern global economy, nations do not compete; it is specialized regions that compete, according to Calestous Juma, faculty chair of the Innovation for Economic Development executive program. To help countries strengthen their regional innovation systems, the Belfer Center will join Harvard Kennedy School’s Executive Education in sponsoring a high level executive program beginning May 28.

In September, experts from Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and other Boston-area universities participated in a three day conference convened by the Belfer Center to examine policy choices facing the fast-changing field of information and communications technology.

Since the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) emerged 50 years ago to counter the dominant power blocs of the Northern Hemisphere, a new global order has taken shape. In her June 2011 discussion paper, “Diplomacy and Nuclear Non-Proliferation: Navigating the Non-Aligned Movement,” Belfer Center fellow Yvonne Yew argues that developing countries now stand at a pivotal moment for nuclear engagement.

The Belfer Center’s Energy Technol­ogy Innovation Policy research group has found that the governments of six key developing countries are spending more on energy technology research, develop­ment, and demonstration than the governments of the two dozen richest countries—combined. See full report here.

The Spring 2011 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This issue highlights the Belfer Center’s continuing efforts to build bridges between the United States and Russia to prevent nuclear catastrophe – an effort that began in the 1950s. This issue also features three new books by Center faculty that sharpen global debate on critical issues: God’s Century, by Monica Duffy Toft, The New Harvest by Calestous Juma, and The Future of Power, by Joseph S. Nye.

Russia, the United States, and other countries must cooperate to enable large-scale growth of nuclear energy around the world while achieving even higher standards of safety, security, and nonproliferation than are in place today. This will require building a new global framework for nuclear energy, including new or strengthened global institutions. The Belfer Center's Managing the Atom (MTA) Project and the Russian Research Center's Kurchatov Institute developed these and additional recommendations in a new collaborative report, published in October.