Environment & Climate Change

31 Items

In 2011, science advisors to the presidents of China and the United States, Wan Gang and John P. Holdren, hold a photo of the historic 1979 U.S.-China agreement on science and engineering.

USDA

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

Center's Energy Work Wields Impact and Influence Around the World

| Fall/Winter 2016-2017

The Belfer Center began researching energy technology issues in the late 1990s. Its mission was “to determine and promote the adoption of effective strategies for developing and deploying cleaner and more efficient energy technologies that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce dependence on fossil fuels and stress on water resources, and improve economic development.”

In this issue, we look at the history and influence of the Center’s energy innovation efforts in the past two decades by focusing primarily on ETIP’s work in the U.S. and China.

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.

Journal Article - Nature

Steps to China's Carbon Peak

| June 18, 2015

China is the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide, accounting for one-quarter of the global total in 2013. Although the country has successfully lowered the rate of emissions from industry in some cities through improved technology and energy-efficiency measures, rapid economic growth means that more emissions are being added than removed. Without mitigation, China's CO2 emissions will rise by more than 50% in the next 15 years.

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.

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

Collaborative Workshop Will Inform Plans for U.S.-China Emissions Deal

Summer 2015

The Belfer Center’s Energy Technology Innovation Policy group is co-organizing a major workshop with China’s Tsinghua University on “Energy Technology Innovation on the “Backdrop of the U.S./China Emissions Deal.” Belfer Center’s Professors Laura Diaz Anadon, Henry Lee and Venky Narayanamurti are planning the June event with Tsinghua University Professor Su Jun, a former Science, Technology, and Public Policy fellow.

Analysis & Opinions - Hippo Reads

Turn Off the Lights: Can Global Climate Agreements Inspire Individual Responsibility?

| December 17, 2014

"Getting individuals to take responsibility for their energy consumption is not just an issue of building short-term awareness of a cause. Rather, these campaigns require changes to long-standing habits, perhaps through constant reminders that emphasize individual action. Climate action therefore raises questions of both the desired intensity and frequency of messages in promoting behavioral change."

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."

Wind turbine visible above Nai Harn Beach, Phuket, Thailand, March 16, 2010.

ADwarf Photo

Journal Article - Journal of Cleaner Production

The Effect of Local and Global Learning on the Cost of Renewable Energy in Developing Countries

| In Press

High upfront costs are a critical barrier for investments in clean infrastructure technologies in developing countries. This paper uses a case study of Thailand's electricity sector to create realistic estimates for the relative contributions of local and global technological learning to reducing these cost in the future and discusses implications of such learnings for international climate policy.

Analysis & Opinions - GlobalPost

EPA Regulations give Obama Standing to Influence Global Climate Action

| September 28, 2013

"A legitimate US climate policy regime enables other countries to create their own domestic policies. Many countries have long been ready to act on climate change, but struggled to justify climate policies to their own people when the United States, the largest pollution emitter in the world, was not seriously pursuing emissions reductions."