Environment & Climate Change

Low-income consumers are "feeling the heat" of growing energy prices, and reducing their use of potentially life-saving air conditioning technology at a time when global temperatures are rising.

The behavior of EV users themselves could play a role in modulating electricity demand and providing needed flexibility in electric grids, said Christine Gschwendtner, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, during an Energy Policy Seminar.

In its push for greener energy, Washington is giving biofuels a boost. But just how green are they? Daniel Schrag, Co-Director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, argued the case for biofuels, opposite Carlisle Ford Runge, who argued against them.

Joshua Schwartz and Sabrina Arias write that although Congress seems unable to act, enough states, cities and counties are mobilizing to make a dent in U.S. carbon emissions. The states, cities, counties, and towns that have committed themselves to upholding the Paris agreement currently release a majority of U.S. carbon emissions. If they do manage to meet their targets, they can make a meaningful difference.

Robert Stavins analyzes the challenges for the Biden administration in producing a quantitative statement of how and by how much U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases will be reduced over time in a new Nationally Determined Contribution.

Daniel Schrag argues that in order to reestablish the United States as a serious partner in addressing global climate change, the president must make good on the original standards of the Paris Agreement.

In order to fully appreciate the global climate-change challenge that the Biden administration will face, Robert Stavins reflects on the history of international negotiations that brought us to this point.

President-elect Joe Biden’s decision to create a new cabinet-level position for climate-related issues — and to choose so prominent a figure as former Secretary of State John Kerry to fill it — demonstrates Biden’s sincerity over putting climate at the very center of U.S. foreign policy. It is easy to understate the importance of this appointment, given the flurry of czars created by most new administrations.

Joseph Aldy advocates for a carbon-price benchmark — which could be set initially at $50 per ton and rise over time — that would reflect the benefits of reducing the pollution causing climate change.

The authors argue that more determined efforts to globalize renewable energy transmission can confer significantly higher economic and environmental benefits from renewables on billions of people. This can be done by exploiting spatial differences between electricity loads and net renewable generation across time zones (temporal arbitrage) and latitude (seasonal arbitrage). Using very long distance, ultra-high voltage (UHV) transmission infrastructure, temporal and spatial arbitrage can move low-cost clean electricity from areas with excess capacity to high demand zones in other countries and even continents.