Environment & Climate Change

In this report, American Nuclear Diplomacy: Forging a New Consensus to Fight Climate Change and Weapons Proliferation, Former Deputy Secretary of Energy and Belfer Center Senior Fellow Daniel Poneman writes that we face two existential threats: nuclear annihilation and catastrophic climate change. Each, he says, stems from human origins. Both must be fought aggressively.

"Multiple studies confirm the grim truth that, even if all nations fulfill their Paris Climate Agreement emissions pledges, the world will still far overshoot the 2°C warming limit scientists say we must not exceed to prevent devastating climate impacts. Carbon-free nuclear energy can help close the gap. But can we expand its environmental benefits without increasing the risks of nuclear terror?"

Poneman outlines a diplomatic strategy and tough-minded, bipartisan policies to get us there.

As Africa's position in the world continues to grow and evolve in 2014, the Brookings Africa Growth Initiative continues its tradition of asking its experts and colleagues to identify what they consider to be the key issues for Africa in the coming year.

A paper by the National Security Advisory Group

The main challenge facing India's energy sector is to increase and improve the delivery of energy services to various sections of the citizenry and the economy in an environmentally and socially acceptable manner.

The cooperative U.S.-Russian effort to ensure that Russian bomb material does not fall into hostile hands - known as the Material Protection, Control, and Accounting (MPC&A) program, managed by the Department of Energy (DOE)-is absolutely crucial to U.S. national security, playing a fundamental role in the global effort to stem the spread of nuclear weapons. Precisely because of the urgency and importance of the task, however, it is essential to ensure that it is being carried out in a manner that will reduce the security threat posed by insecure nuclear material as quickly and effectively as practicable.

This report provides an assessment of the current MPC&A program and makes recommendations designed to accelerate and strengthen the effort, including steps toward the difficult goal of achieving sustainable security for nuclear material in the former Soviet Union over the long term.