Environment & Climate Change

Dr Olli Heinonen, S. Rajaratnam Professor of Strategic Studies, on 25 October 2016, in a RSIS seminar at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

"Barack Obama's tenure, particularly his second term, is studded with peacemaking deals, from the Iranian nuclear agreement, to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, to the re-opening of relations with Cuba, and to now the accord on climate change. His first term brought us the Affordable Care Act. When are we going to back off our disappointment at his clear lack of bombast?"

The Spring 2011 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This issue highlights the Belfer Center’s continuing efforts to build bridges between the United States and Russia to prevent nuclear catastrophe – an effort that began in the 1950s. This issue also features three new books by Center faculty that sharpen global debate on critical issues: God’s Century, by Monica Duffy Toft, The New Harvest by Calestous Juma, and The Future of Power, by Joseph S. Nye.

"George W. Bush's presidency really was that bad — and the fact that Obama has largely followed the same course is less a measure of Bush's wisdom than a reminder of the depth of the hole he dug his country into, as well as the institutionalized groupthink that dominates the U.S. foreign-policy establishment."

"...critics on the left have complained that he has not been able to get Congress to pass a tough energy bill before the Copenhagen conference on climate change. But Obama has helped to persuade China and India to announce useful efforts, and he will set an American target of reducing greenhouse emissions that should prevent the conference from being a failure."

"In the past, the US was respected because its public institutions could set ambitious goals and then achieve them...."

"The terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon triggered the most rapid and dramatic change in the history of U.S. foreign policy."