Asia & the Pacific

442 Items

Analysis & Opinions - Financial Times

China’s dominance of solar poses difficult choices for the west

| June 22, 2023

The geopolitical implications of solar displacing oil as the world’s major source of energy are enormous. Why has the Middle East been a central arena in the “great game” for the past century? Because countries there have been the major suppliers of the oil and gas that powered 20th-century economies. If, over the next decade, photovoltaic cells that capture energy from the sun were to replace a substantial part of the demand for oil and gas, who will the biggest losers be? And even more consequentially: who will be the biggest winner?

A man fishes near an oil drilling platform

AP/Eric Gay, File

Policy Brief - Harvard Initiative to Reduce Global Methane Emissions

Updating Estimates of Methane Emissions: The Case of China

    Authors:
  • Zichong Chen
  • Daniel Jacob
| May 2023

The Harvard Initiative to Reduce Global Methane Emissions released its first publication in May 2023: a research brief titled “Updating Estimates of Methane Emissions: The Case of China.” The Initiative is one of five interdisciplinary research clusters funded by the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University. The Harvard Project on Climate Agreements collaborates in the implementation of the Initiative.

Robert Stavins

Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer

Newspaper Article - Harvard Gazette

Glimmers of Movement, Hope at COP27

    Author:
  • Alvin Powell
| Nov. 23, 2022

Following the COP27 climate conference in Egypt, Robert Stavins said in an interview with the Harvard Gazette that the talks were both frustrating and hopeful: frustrating because they did little to accelerate the slow pace of action to reduce carbon emissions, and hopeful because of a reawakened dialogue between the world’s biggest emitters—the U.S. and China—and movement to address climate-related damage to the world’s most vulnerable nations.

HPCA Director Robert Stavins discusses

Doug Gavel

News - Harvard Project on Climate Agreements

HPCA Director Robert Stavins Shares Thoughts on Carbon Pricing Regimes in COP-27 Side Event

    Author:
  • Doug Gavel
| Nov. 21, 2022

China and the United States are back on a productive track to adopt more cooperative approaches on global climate change. Those were the sentiments expressed by Harvard Project Director Robert Stavins on Wednesday (November 16) during a side event focusing on the China National Climate Change Assessment Report at COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

Electricians install solar panels.

AP/Mary Altaffer

Report Chapter - Brookings Institution

Mexico’s Energy Reforms: A Blow to Realizing the Most Competitive and Dynamic Region in the World

| Feb. 28, 2022

In late 2017, Mexico made headlines as Italian company Enel bid what was then a world-record low price for renewable energy in the country’s third such energy auction. This development was possible due to the historical and sweeping energy reforms passed with broad support in Mexico in 2013. Then-President Enrique Peña Nieto had succeeded where previous Mexican presidents had failed, reversing decades of resource nationalism and overhauling the energy sector through constitutional reforms that gave the private sector a larger role and advantaged renewable energy in Mexico’s economy. The 2017 auction seemed to indicate Mexico’s bright future not only as a conventional oil producer, but also as a clean energy power.

Book - Cambridge University Press

Foundations for a Low-Carbon Energy System in China

How can China make good on its pledge to reach carbon neutrality by 2060? In Foundations for a Low-Carbon Energy System in China, a team of experts from China and the United States explains how China's near-term climate and energy policies can affect long-term decarbonization pathways beyond 2030, building the foundations for a smoother and less costly national energy transformation.

Robert Stavins

Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer

Newspaper Article - Harvard Gazette

Separating Signal from Noise at COP26

    Author:
  • Alvin Powell
| Nov. 17, 2021

For an assessment of what was done, and left undone, at the recent United Nations’ Conference of the Parties on climate change, the Gazette spoke with Rob Stavins, the Harvard Kennedy School’s A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy and Economic Development and head of the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, who attended his first COP in 2007 in Bali.