Asia & the Pacific

As the single largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world and the source of almost 30 percent of the CO2 released into our atmosphere, China faces an enormous challenge in reaching its goal of zero or negative emissions—known as deep decarbonization.

Henry Lee, Director of the Environment and Natural Resources Program (ENRP), and Dan Schrag, Co-Director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, head a team of researchers from the U.S. and China who have been examining China’s work in achieving deep decarbonization in the People’s Republic. The team plans to publish its findings in a book to be released in 2019. 

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.

The Paris Climate Conference in December was the point of convergence for a number of current and former Belfer Center climate and environment experts who played significant roles in the planning and presentations at the UN Conference of the Parties (COP-21) in Paris.

The Belfer Center’s Energy Technology Innovation Policy group is co-organizing a major workshop with China’s Tsinghua University on “Energy Technology Innovation on the “Backdrop of the U.S./China Emissions Deal.” Belfer Center’s Professors Laura Diaz Anadon, Henry Lee and Venky Narayanamurti are planning the June event with Tsinghua University Professor Su Jun, a former Science, Technology, and Public Policy fellow.

International Security is America’s leading journal of security affairs. It provides sophisticated analyses of contemporary security issues and discusses their conceptual and historical foundations. The journal is edited at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center and published quarterly by the MIT Press.

The Spring 2013 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 edition highlights the Belfer Center’s deepening engagement with China.

"Belfer Center Newsmakers" highlights members of the Belfer Center community who have been featured recently in the news.

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.

The Winter 2011-2012 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features news, analysis and insight by Belfer Center scholars on issues that include increasingly important info-tech policy challenges and the first U.S.-Russian joint threat assessment on nuclear terrorism. The Center’s deepening impact on defense policy is highlighted with an article about the recent appointments of Ashton B. Carter and Eric Rosenbach to senior Pentagon posts and a Q&A with Carter, the new deputy secretary of defense. Additional articles focus on issues ranging from the Palestinian bid for statehood to Calestous Juma’s role in Lagos’ launch of the first innovation advisory council in Africa.

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.