Environment & Climate Change

Two prominent national journalists from The Washington Post, Juliet Eilperin and Chris Mooney, spoke about the early days of reporting on President Trump’s anti-environment policies and appointments—and efforts to undo President Obama’s pro-climate legacy—at a recent public talk at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Pursuing Sustainability: A Guide to the Science and Practice, by leading authorities Pamela Matson, William C. Clark, and Krister Andersson, is a concise guide that provides everyone interested in sustainability – students, scholars, and practitioners alike – with a strategic framework and approaches for understanding, analyzing, and effectively engaging in sustainability challenges. While individuals from every realm of society can and need to engage in this, innovations from the research and innovation communities are particularly needed; creating useful knowledge and linking it effectively with decision-making is an urgent need. In educational settings, the book serves as an invaluable primer and companion to research and teaching that deals with sustainability in particular sectors such as energy, food, water, and cities, or in particular regions of the world. In professional settings, it offers a guide to how we all—regardless of profession—can become more effective in the pursuit of sustainability.

In this installment of “Inside the Middle East: Q&A,” Dr. Abbas Al-Mejren, Kuwait Foundation Visiting Scholar at the Middle East Initiative and Professor of Economics at Kuwait University, discusses economic development plans in Kuwait and Gulf Cooperation Council countries, including poverty alleviation and rationalizing subsidies.

Is EPA's proposal for regulating carbon emissions from existing sources a reasonable interpretation of the Clean Air Act, likely to lead to significant environmental benefits at reasonable economic cost, or is it an overly complex overreach, likely to be overturned by the courts or abandoned by a future president?  In a discussion moderated by Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government Robert Stavins, David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Jeffrey Holmstead of Bracewell & Giuliani discussed their differing views of EPA's proposed rule.

Harvard Project on Climate Agreements Director Robert N. Stavins delivered a presentation titled "Climate Change: Efficiency and Equity," at The Graduate Institute in Geneva, Switzerland, on November 29, 2011. The talk was one in the Geneva Environmental Dialogue Series of public keynote lectures that the Institute holds annually on a theme related to the international environment. The theme for the 2011–2012 term is "Justice and the Environment."

Harvard Project on Climate Agreements Director Robert N. Stavins delivered a featured address at the Institute of International and European Affairs, Ireland's leading think tank on international affairs, on September 16, 2011, in Dublin. As preparations for the next round of crucial climate negotiations in Durban, South Africa, commence, Stavins discussed the prospects for the negotiations; the future of climate action beyond the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012; and the economics of climate change policy.

A new study by Belfer Center Geopolitics of Energy researcher Leonardo Maugeri finds that oil production capacity is surging in the United States and several other countries at such a fast pace that global oil output capacity is likely to grow by nearly 20 percent by 2020.  This could prompt a plunge or even a collapse in oil prices.  The findings by Maugeri, a former oil industry executive who is now a fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, are based on an original field-by-field analysis of the world’s major oil formations and exploration projects.