Environment & Climate Change

The United States and China should manage competition and cooperation at the same time by identifying and working on areas of shared interest, the Harvard professor who has been hunting for solutions to the "Thucydides Trap" has said.

The subtitle tells the story. In the early 2000s, many pundits and politicians talked up “peak oil”, “energy scarcity,” and all that. In a geological heartbeat later—about a decade—the world had entered an era of “energy abundance,” largely due to innovations that allowed producers to crack into shale formations to release massive new sources of oil and gas. The United States has gone furthest and fastest in fracking and is setting records for oil and gas production. For the US, says O’Sullivan, this has been an economic, strategic, and environmental game-changer. For the rest of the world, the effects are more differentiated but hardly less profound.

The subtitle tells the story. In the early 2000s, many pundits and politicians talked up “peak oil,” “energy scarcity,” and all that. In a geological heartbeat later—about a decade—the world had entered an era of “energy abundance,” largely due to innovations that allowed producers to crack into shale formations to release massive new sources of oil and gas. The United States has gone furthest and fastest in fracking and is setting records for oil and gas production. For the US, says O’Sullivan, this has been an economic, strategic, and environmental game-changer. For the rest of the world, the effects are more differentiated but hardly less profound.

Despite the opposition that appears now in China-U.S. relations, cooperation is far more important, underscored prominent U.S. political scientist Dr. Joseph S. Nye during an exclusive interview with Wang Xiaohui, editor-in-chief of China.org.cn, on Jan. 10, 2019.

The Harvard Project’s panel event on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, co-hosted by the Enel Foundation, drew upon a major research paper, “Governing Cooperative Approaches under the Paris Agreement,” by Michael Mehling. A full summary of the panel can be found here. Mehling’s paper may be found here.

This essay examines Russia’s growing role in Asia’s energy markets, assesses the implications for the U.S., and examines the claim that closer Sino-Russian energy ties are adding new incentives for a broader strategic alignment.

In placing retaliatory tariffs on certain goods and products, America’s trade partners have signaled how well they understand American politics. By targeting products from areas supportive of President Donald Trump, they clearly hope to generate pressure to lift U.S. tariffs or even create broader political problems for the president. But China is sending much more interesting — and complex — messages with its indication that it may place retaliatory tariffs on U.S. energy exports.

This article explores the benefits of — and challenges to — regional, national, and sub-national jurisdictions linking their climate policies with each other.