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.

If the world is serious about addressing climate change, we should welcome forward momentum on this critical technology. Getting on track for net zero emissions by 2050 will require swiftly and massively ramping up carbon capture deployment.

For many, integrating “decarbonization” into public policy, corporate and financial strategies has become a requirement, not an option — yet, what happens when the critical link between climate stability and decarbonization breaks?

Russian military action in Ukraine could trigger an energy crisis even more serious than the one already hitting Europe. As has been pointed out, should the West hit Russia with severe new sanctions, President Vladimir Putin could cut off natural gas exports, leaving the continent shivering through midwinter. Yet there is another potential weapon of Russia’s that’s been less discussed and might be very effective: An ability to disrupt global oil markets, which would directly hit U.S. consumers.

If you were wondering whether Europe is running out of options to deal with its continuing energy crisis, one of Britain’s largest energy suppliers just offered an answer.

Stephen Walt enumerates the challenges the U.S. president should prepare for in 2021.

Joseph Nye analyzes why the Cold War metaphor in relation to  the U.S. and China, although convenient, is lazy and potentially dangerous. It obscures and misleads us by underestimating the real challenge we face — and offering ineffective strategies.

Stephen Walt argues that what 9/11 means to future generations depends less on what actually occurred on that day or on how the United States and others responded and more on what the United States and others do from this day forward. 

During the Cold War, US grand strategy focused on containing the power of the Soviet Union. China's rise now requires America and its allies to develop a strategy that seeks not total victory over an existential threat, but rather managed competition that allows for both cooperation and rivalry within a rules-based system.