Environment & Climate Change

The Biden Administration and automotive industry have announced ambitious targets for the number of electric vehicles they hope to deploy by 2030, but automakers are not yet on track to meet those targets, according to new analysis by researchers at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. 

Nat Keohane, a climate expert, spoke with HKS faculty member Henry Lee at a Harvard Climate Action Week event held at the Kennedy School on the challenges and opportunities for building on recent progress in U.S. climate policy.

Environmental policy experts discussed China’s energy policies during an event at the Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs on April 10, 2023. The event featured Weila Gong, a Belfer Center postdoctoral research fellow, and Georgetown University professor Joanna I. Lewis, who discussed their joint research exploring China’s coal consumption, its pledge to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, and the political and economic factors hindering the country’s transition away from coal.

Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy David M. Turk discussed the federal government’s plans to foster the transition to clean energy at a Monday seminar held by the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

The Harvard Project conducted a research and policy workshop in December 2021, “Subnational Climate Change Policy in India.” Co-sponsors were the Centre for Policy Research, in New Delhi, and the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute at Harvard University.

The Harvard Project conducted a joint research workshop in October 2021, “ETS and the power sector in China and other Asian countries: interactions, design, and operation.” Co-organizers were the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) and the Center for Energy Economics and Strategy Studies, Fudan University.

Jeju Island, the 707 square mile self-governing province off the south coast of South Korea which is making ambitious strides toward its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2030, serves as a potential important demonstration for other sub-national entities that seek to reduce their global climate footprint.

China recently launched the world’s largest emissions trading market, but it is just one component of the nation’s ambitious efforts to curb the rise in greenhouse-gas emissions. That was the message delivered on Thursday (July 22) by Carnegie Mellon University Associate Professor Valerie Karplus during a Virtual Forum hosted by the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements (HPCA) and moderated by Robert Stavins, HPCA Director and A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy and Economic Development.

The Harvard Project conducted a research workshop in June 2021, “Prospects for Guangdong Province’s Emissions Trading System.” Guangdong Province ranks first in economic output among China’s provinces and will play a major role in achieving increasingly ambitious national emissions-reduction targets. Guangdong’s emissions-trading system is, in turn, a key policy instrument in the Province’s climate-action plan.

Former White House advisor Jason Bordoff, professor and founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), says the incoming Biden-Harris Administration will have the opportunity to both lift the nation out of recession and combat global climate change by crafting a thoughtful economic stimulus plan containing a significant green energy investment component.