Environment & Climate Change

140 Items

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

HKS in Iceland: Summer Interns Help National Energy Authority Accelerate the Energy Transition

| Aug. 28, 2023

Antonio Perry MPP 2024 and Monserrat Ocana MPP 2024 had the opportunity to intern with Iceland’s National Energy Authority (NEA) and contribute to the country’s ambitious climate journey. 

Bolero photovoltaic project in Chile

Antonio Garcia/Unsplash

Paper - World Bank

Assessing the Impact of Renewable Energy Policies on Decarbonization in Developing Countries

| February 2023

This study offers the first consistent attempt to identify how energy sector decarbonization policies have affected the energy mix over the past four decades across more than 100 developing countries. 

A public charging station for electric vehicles in New Delhi, India, Thursday, April 1, 2021.

AP Photo/Neha Mehrotra

Journal Article - Nature Energy

Understanding India’s Low-Carbon Energy Technology Startup Landscape

| Dec. 15, 2022

Low-carbon energy technology (LCET) startups could play a key role in accelerating India’s decarbonization. Yet, understanding of the LCET startup landscape and what shapes it remains low. This paper provides an analysis of the Indian LCET startup landscape to fill this gap.

three wind turbines silhouetted against the sky

Unsplash/Ethan Kent

Journal Article - Energy Policy

Does Green Growth Foster Green Policies? Value Chain Upgrading and Feedback Mechanisms on Renewable Energy Policies

| April 2022

The expansion of renewable energies not only lowers carbon emissions, it also redistributes resources among actors. This article argues that green industrialization – specifically, manufacturing and the development of renewable energy technologies — creates economic gains that impact political processes and increase renewable energy policy ambition. Building on a combined framework of policy feedback and global value chain literature, authors Laima Eicke and Silvia Weko see domestic value creation as a key determinant of coalition strength and learning effects for policymakers. 

Delegates and participants line up at the main entrance to the COP26 Climate Change Conference 2021

Wikimedia CC/Dean Calma (IAEA)

Analysis & Opinions - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

COP26 Takeaways: Statement from Laura Diaz Anadon

| Nov. 18, 2021

What was accomplished? COP26 created pressure for some countries to produce revised  Nationally Determined Contributions, helped catalyze new pledges to reduce emissions (including from India), led to the approval of the rules to govern international cooperation and carbon markets (the Paris Rulebook) addressing the issue of double counting, and served as the Launchpad for some novel initiatives that could play a useful role. Among the announcements that were made, was one that recognizes the importance of strategic investment and government action to lower the cost of technologies to reach carbon neutrality.

The diversion of the Ganga into the artificial Upper Ganga Canal.

Wikimedia CC/Neerajpandeyin

Journal Article - Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

Energy Generation in the Canal Irrigation Network in India: Integrated Spatial Planning Framework on the Upper Ganga Canal Corridor

| December 2021

An extensive canal irrigation network in South Asia has developed over the past 170 years that consists of thousands of kilometers of constructed channels and distributaries. These canals cut across many energy-poor regions along their paths. In India, this canal network provides a unique opportunity for renewable energy generation that is yet to be realized.

Audio - Background Briefing with Ian Masters

Time Wasted and the Urgent Need to Decarbonize

| Aug. 10, 2021

Ian Masters and Joel Clement assess how much time has been lost by governments in facing the looming crisis of climate change, in particular here in the U.S. where the last four years were not only wasted, but were steps backwards from the urgent challenges made clear by yesterday's alarming IPCC report.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska., speaks during a Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources hearing

Pool via AP/Leigh Vogel

Analysis & Opinions - The Hill

Why Biden's Interior Department isn't Shutting Down Oil and Gas

| July 23, 2021

Joel Clement describes the influence of U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Joe Manchin over the Department of the Interior and advises that a forward-looking legislator in a fossil-fuel state would be wise to fight aggressively for financial commitments to make the people in their state part of the vanguard of the new clean energy economy, rather than set back the U.S. economy by fighting the inevitable energy transition itself.