Energy

Opening the joint CLIMATE CHANGE DIPLOMACY WEEK event series, speakers and leading climate change experts from both Harvard and beyond participated in a panel discussion titled "What's at Stake in Paris?: Diplomacy and Policy at the Climate Change Talks," moderated by the Future of Diplomacy Project Faculty Director, R. Nicholas Burns, and co-hosted with the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements on November 9. The speakers comprised of Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology at Harvard University, Daniel Schrag;former Costa Rican Minister of Environment and Energy, René Castro; former Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs and chief climate negotiator, Paula Dobriansky; and Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government and Director of the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, Robert Stavins. Together panellists weighed in on the upcoming UNFCCC talks to be held in Paris in December and the overarching policy issues at play.

Scientists from three universities demonstrate that buying a product made in China causes significantly higher carbon dioxide emissions than purchasing the same product made elsewhere.

James Stock, a Faculty Fellow of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program—the Harvard Project's parent program—organized a roundtable discussion that took place on January 4, 2015, at the annual meeting of the Allied Social Science Association, held this year in Boston, entitled "The Economics of the EPA's Proposed Regulation of CO2 Emissions from Power Plants." Professor Stock was a member of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisors in 2013–2014, where he worked on the development of this important regulatory proposal. Harvard Environmental Economics Program (HEEP) and Harvard Project Director Robert Stavins participated in the roundtable panel.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), at the direction of President Barack Obama, released a landmark rule on June 2, 2014 that aims to reduce carbon emissions from the electric-power sector by 30 percent, nationwide, below 2005 levels by 2030. Robert Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) and Director of the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, was interviewed by HKS about the new rule.

Washington Post national environment reporter Juliet Eilperin spoke on the political difficulties of pursuing environmental policy in a seminar titled "Covering Environmental Controversies in a Political Environment" at the Harvard Kennedy School.

The Harvard Project on Climate Agreements hosted, on January 10, 2012, a study tour of Chinese officials working in climate and energy policy. The tour was organized by the World Resources Institute's China office. The study tour and several members of the Harvard faculty discussed options and prospects for international policy to address global climate change.

CAMBRIDGE, MA— The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University announced today that the 2011 Roy Family Award for Environmental Partnership will be given to Refrigerants, Naturally!, an alliance of corporations substituting environmentally-harmful fluorinated gases ("F-gases", such as CFCs, HCFCs and HFCs) with natural refrigerants in their commercial refrigeration installations. Natural refrigerants are climate and ozone friendly gases that exist naturally in the biosphere, i.e. ammonia, carbon dioxide, and hydrocarbons.