Asia & the Pacific

39 Items

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.

Shanghai, China

Li Yang / Unsplash

Report

Is China's Hydrogen Economy Coming?

| July 28, 2020

This paper focuses on China and the potential role of renewable hydrogen in accelerating its transition to a low-carbon economy. Our research goal is to provide policymakers and other stakeholders the means to make informed decisions on technology innovation, policy instruments, and long-term investments in enabling infrastructure.

The U.S. Capitol is seen at sunrise, in Washington, October 10, 2017

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Paper - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Protecting Democracy in an Era of Cyber Information War

| February 2019

Citizens voluntarily carry Big Brother and his relatives in their pockets. Along with big data and artificial intelligence, technology has made the problem of defending democracy from information warfare far more complicated than foreseen two decades ago. And while rule of law, trust, truth and openness make democracies asymmetrically vulnerable, they are also critical values to defend.  Any policy to defend against cyber information war must start with the Hippocratic oath: first, do no harm.

Tokyo at night

Flickr / Agustin Rafael Reyes

Paper - London School of Economics

Global Review of Finance For Sustainable Urban Infrastructure

    Authors:
  • Graham Floater
  • Dan Dowling
  • Denise Chan
  • Matthew Ulterino
  • Tim McMinn
  • Ehtisham Ahmad
| December 2017

This paper is a background review representing part of the initial phase of the Financing the Urban Transition work program. The review builds on a growing body of research that highlights both the importance of national sustainable infrastructure and the need to develop more effective and efficient financing mechanisms for delivering compact, connected cities that meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. While progress has been made in both these areas over the last five years, there remains a policy gap between the international/national level and the municipal level.

Paper - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Russia and Cyber Operations: Challenges and Opportunities for the Next U.S. Administration

| December 13, 2016

Russian cyber operations against the United States aim to both collect information and develop offensive capabilities against future targets. Washington must strengthen its defenses in response.

China’s Nuclear Security: Progress, Challenges, and Next Steps

REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

Report - Managing the Atom Project, Belfer Center

China’s Nuclear Security: Progress, Challenges, and Next Steps

| March 28, 2016

In a new report from the Project on Managing the Atom, Senior Research Associate Hui Zhang finds that China has made important nuclear security improvements in areas ranging from its legal framework, to its approaches to physical protection and material accounting, to bolstering nuclear security culture. But China also faces ongoing threats. The possibility of insider theft of nuclear materials in China cannot be ruled out, espe­cially as China increasingly grows into a market-oriented society contending with corruption. Zhang also notes that Beijing faces a growing terrorism threat from separatists in China’s autonomous Xinjiang region.

Report

China's Carbon Emissions Report 2015

| May 2015

The magnitude and growing annual rate of growth of China's carbon emissions make this country the major driver of global carbon emissions and thus a key focus for efforts in emissions mitigations. This report presents independent data on China's carbon emissions from 1950–2012, and provides a basis to support mitigation efforts and China's low-carbon development plan.

Report - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

SUMMARY REPORT: U.S.-China 21

| April 2015

The future relationship between China and the United States is one of the mega-changes and mega-challenges of our age. China’s rise is the geopolitical equivalent of the melting polar ice caps – gradual change on a massive scale that can suddenly lead to dramatic turns of events.

In this Summary Report of a longer forthcoming work, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, a senior fellow at the Belfer Center, asks if this defining trend of the 21st century can be managed peacefully? He argues that it can – if Washington and Beijing commit to placing their relationship on a stable, long-term footing.

Rudd's findings emerge from a major study he led at the Center on the possibilities and impacts of a new strategic relationship between China and the United States.

Report

Low Carbon Shanghai

August 2014

Reducing carbon emissions in Shanghai is a huge undertaking and involves every facet of both energy supply options and energy consumption patterns. The report focuses on three areas: 1. The integration of land use, transportation, and housing planning; 2. Improving building efficiency; and 3. Improving electricity use in building operations. As public concern over conventional air pollutants grows and the demand for air conditioning in the increasingly hot summers and heating in the winter rises, the potential of "locking-in" inefficient and costly energy use patterns increases. This report addresses these challenges.