Environment & Climate Change

103 Items

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

Event Debrief: Elliot Diringer Takes Stock of the International Climate Effort

| Dec. 21, 2023

Ahead of COP28 in Dubai, Harvard Kennedy School hosted Elliot Diringer, Senior Policy Advisor in the office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, for an Energy Policy Seminar on the evolution of the COP process.

mangrove roots

Lydia Zemke

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

Making a Case for Investing in Nature: An Interview with Lydia Zemke

| Aug. 15, 2023

As a Predoctoral Research Fellow at the Belfer Center’s Environment and Natural Resources Program and Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, Lydia Zemke has spent the last two years studying climate finance in developing countries. As she rounds out her time at the Belfer Center, Zemke she reflects on her research interests, her experience conducting fieldwork in Kenya and Costa Rica, and her advice for other early-career researchers. 

herd of walrus on ice floe

Caitlin Bailey, GFOE, The Hidden Ocean 2016: Chukchi Borderlands via NOAA

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

The UN High Seas Treaty in the Arctic Context

| Mar. 21, 2023

Legal scholar Andrey Todorov, Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Arctic Initiative, reflects on the recent agreement reached by United Nations delegates to protect biodiversity in international waters and its implications for the Arctic. 

midnight sun shines on sea ice

AP Photo/David Goldman, File

Book Chapter - Cambridge University Press

The International Law of the Sea and Arctic Governance: Paving the Way to Integrated Ecosystem-Based Marine Management

| Feb. 21, 2023

Arctic Initiative Research Fellow Andrey Todorov analyzes options to integrate the ecosystem-based approach (EBA) with Arctic Ocean governance.

Satellite image of the Bering Strait and Diomede Islands

NASA

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

Bering Strait Navigation and Conservation in Times of Conflict

| November 2022

As climate change and economic activity in the region accelerate in the Bering Strait region, the United States and Russia have a common interest in mitigating these shared environmental risks. A November workshop hosted by Harvard Kennedy School’s Arctic Initiative, the Wilson Center’s Polar Institute, and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) brought together seventeen experts to explore potential actions that the United States and Russia could pursue, jointly or independently, to protect the Bering Strait’s sensitive marine ecosystem and coastal communities. 

Officials at COP 26

Stenbocki Maja/Flickr

Analysis & Opinions - Foresight

COP 26: There is No Mitigation without Cooperation

| November 2021

Article 6 is one of the thorniest issues in climate negotiations and determines how countries trade emissions. In Glasgow, countries finally found an agreement on this thorny issue, whose rules have the potential to support the achievement of the Paris Agreement’s goals at a lower cost and provide larger incentives for private sector investments, writes Marinella Davide.

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.

sopka

imaggeo.egu.eu/Alexandra Loginova

Journal Article - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Permafrost Carbon Feedbacks Threaten Global Climate Goals

    Authors:
  • Susan M. Natali
  • Brendan M. Rogers
  • Rachael Treharne
  • Philip Duffy
  • Rafe Pomerance
  • Erin MacDonald
| May 25, 2021

There is an urgent need to incorporate the latest science on carbon emissions from permafrost thaw and northern wildfires into international consideration of how much more aggressively societal emissions must be reduced to address the global climate crisis.