Environment & Climate Change

27 Items

Journal Article - Nature Climate Change

Targeted Opportunities to Address the Climate–trade Dilemma in China

    Authors:
  • Steven J Davis
  • Kuishuang Feng
  • Klaus Hubacek
  • Sai Liang
  • Bin Chen
  • Jingru Liu
  • Jinyue Yan
  • Dabo Guan
| 2015

International trade has become the fastest growing driver of global carbon emissions, with large quantities of emissions embodied in exports from emerging economies. International trade with emerging economies poses a dilemma for climate and trade policy: to the extent emerging markets have comparative advantages in manufacturing, such trade is economically efficient and desirable. However, if carbon-intensive manufacturing in emerging countries such as China entails drastically more CO2 emissions than making the same product elsewhere, then trade increases global CO2 emissions.

Report

China's Carbon Emissions Report 2015

| May 2015

The magnitude and growing annual rate of growth of China's carbon emissions make this country the major driver of global carbon emissions and thus a key focus for efforts in emissions mitigations. This report presents independent data on China's carbon emissions from 1950–2012, and provides a basis to support mitigation efforts and China's low-carbon development plan.

Hundreds of wind turbines in Guazhou County, Gansu province, China, 13 May 2013.

Wikimedia CC

Analysis & Opinions - The Diplomat

Could a Climate Change Deal Fit China's Economic Reform Agenda?

| August 22, 2014

"An ambitious deal might also stimulate more demand for innovations in clean technologies, in which China is emerging as a global leader. But because of the UN's decision-making process, in which all its members have to agree on a new deal, Xi Jinping is in the powerful position of being able to commit to only as much emission reductions as fit his domestic policy agenda."

Announcement - Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, Belfer Center

STPP Fellowships, 2014–2015

November 25, 2013

Each year, the Science, Technology, and Public Policy (STPP) Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School welcomes new pre- and post-doctoral fellows and visiting researchers to a select team of scholars exploring the critical role that science and technology play in everyday life.

May 25, 2011: Sharan Pinto installs a solar panel antenna on a house roof in Nada, India. Across India, small companies and aid programs are bypassing the central electricity grid to deliver solar panels to the rural poor.

AP Photo

Journal Article - Energy Policy

Modern Energy Access to All in Rural India: An Integrated Implementation Strategy

| December 2011

Expanding energy access to the rural population of India presents a critical challenge for its government. The presence of 364 million people without access to electricity and 726 million who rely on biomass for cooking indicate both the failure of past policies and programs, and the need for a radical redesign of the current system. We propose an integrated implementation framework with recommendations for adopting business principles with innovative institutional, regulatory, financing and delivery mechanisms.

Book - MIT Press

Carbon Coalitions: Business, Climate Politics, and the Rise of Emissions Trading

| October 2011

Over the past decade, carbon trading has emerged as the industrialized world's primary policy response to global climate change despite considerable controversy. With carbon markets worth $144 billion in 2009, carbon trading represents the largest manifestation of the trend toward market-based environmental governance. In Carbon Coalitions, Jonas Meckling presents the first comprehensive study on the rise of carbon trading and the role business played in making this policy instrument a central pillar of global climate governance.

People from rural India demanding equitable distribution of energy carry lanterns as they stage a protest outside the Indian Social Justice Ministry in New Delhi, India, Nov. 18, 2009.

AP Photo

Discussion Paper - Energy Technology Innovation Policy Project, Belfer Center

Modern Energy Access to All in Rural India: An Integrated Implementation Strategy

| August 2010

Expanding energy access to the rural population of India presents a critical challenge for its government. The presence of about 364 million people without access to electricity and about 726 million who rely on biomass for cooking indicate both the failure of past policies and programs, and the dire need is for a radical redesign of the current system that will address the need to expand energy access for these people.

Laborers loud coal onto trucks on the outskirts of Jammu, India, Aug. 2, 2007. Coal from different Indian states is distributed in Jammu and Kashmir for industrial and domestic purposes.

AP Photo

Journal Article - Energy

Sustainable Development of the Indian Coal Sector

| In Press

Increased availability of energy, especially electricity, is important for India to help advance economic and human development. Coal, which currently accounts for more than 50% of total primary commercial energy supply in the country and for about 70% of total electricity generation, is likely to remain a key energy source for India for at least the next 30–40 years. Thus, sustainable development of the Indian coal sector is necessary to ensure the ability to sustain the increased production of coal in the country and to do so in an environmentally and socially sustainable manner.

Book Chapter

Policy for Energy Technology Innovation

| May 2009

"The United States ought to be the leader of the world in the energy technology innovation that is needed. It has the largest economy, uses the most energy (and within that total the most oil), has made the largest cumulative contribution to the atmospheric buildup of fossil carbon dioxide that is the dominant driver of global climate change, has a large balance of payments stake in competitiveness in the global energy technology market as well as a large stake in the worldwide economic and security benefits of meeting global energy needs in affordable and sustainable ways, and possesses by many measures the most capable scientific and engineering workforce in the world. The actual performance of this country in energy-technology innovation, however, has been falling short by almost every measure...."