Energy

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.

Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, University Professor at Columbia University, shared his thoughts on carbon pricing, the post-pandemic economic recovery, and green economy transition during a virtual forum on September 8 sponsored by the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, and hosted by Robert Stavins, A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy and Economic Development at Harvard Kennedy School.

Arctic Innovator Samuel Gant writes that by adopting world-class environmental and safety standards and creating a sovereign wealth fund, Greenland can ensure mining serves its best interests.

This policy brief emphasizes that the European Green Deal's effectiveness in a post Covid-19 world will require the involvement of strategic partners, especially the US. In the context of a potential US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and the consequential vacuum, it will be even more important to engage the US in implementing the GD. In light of divergence between the US and the EU during past climate negotiations (e.g. Kyoto, Copenhagen, and Paris), we suggest a gradual approach to US engagement with GD initiatives and objectives.

As part of the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship’s (PETR) 2019 European Election event series, Muriel Rouyer, Adjunct Professor of Public Policy and Robert N. Stavins, A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy & Economic Development, discussed transatlantic advances in environmental policy, as well as the role the issue of climate change would play in the EU parliament vote taking place on May 23-26, in a conversation with Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook, Executive Director of PETR on April 30th, 2019.