Environment & Climate Change

Harvard Kennedy School hosted Sarah Ladislaw, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Climate and Energy of the U.S. National Security Council, for an Energy Policy Seminar on the U.S. approach to energy and climate issues in its foreign policy.

Direct air capture (DAC) is a type of technology that captures carbon dioxide directly from the air. As the negative impacts of climate change become ever more apparent, governments and private industries have funneled increasing support toward DAC as a critical pathway toward achieving a net-zero future. Although a promising technology, wide-scale deployment of DAC faces several significant challenges.

Significant technological advances in satellite technology and atmospheric measurements have greatly enhanced the understanding of methane concentrations and emissions. The dynamic ways in which those advancements are allowing researchers to monitor methane emissions down to the source level was the focus of discussion Thursday (November 17) at a COP-27 side event co-hosted by the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, the Enel Foundation, and the government of Mexico.

Last week, U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin seemingly dashed Democrats’ hopes for congressional action to slow climate change. Sen. Bernie Sanders accused Manchin of “sabotag[ing] the president’s agenda”; Rep. John Yarmuth, when asked about the consequences of Congress not acting on climate change, said, “We’re all going to die”; and climate activists, as well as some Democrats in Congress, wondered if Manchin should be removed as chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

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?

In recent years, the relationship between China and the United States has been characterized by rising geopolitical tensions, and cooperation and coordination between the two countries has become something of a pipe dream. Yet there is one issue where the interests of both clearly overlap: climate change. A global temperature increase of 3°C will damage the economies and social fabric of both the United States and China—an outcome that both countries want to avoid. 

Paul Joskow, the Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics emeritus at MIT and former President and CEO of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in New York City, shared his thoughts on U.S. regulatory economics and climate change policy in the latest episode of “Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program.”

.

Article 6 is one of the thorniest issues in climate negotiations and determines how countries trade emissions. In Glasgow, countries finally found an agreement on this thorny issue, whose rules have the potential to support the achievement of the Paris Agreement’s goals at a lower cost and provide larger incentives for private sector investments, writes Marinella Davide.

Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs today announced the appointment of Lori Garver and Beth Sanner as non-resident Senior Fellows. Garver is a former Deputy Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) and current CEO of Earthrise Alliance. Sanner was Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Mission Integration and is now Professor of Practice at the University of Maryland's Applied Research Lab for Intelligence Security. They will both share their experience and expertise with students and faculty of Harvard Kennedy School and the greater Harvard community.      

Joel Clement writes that because the Biden administration  has moved to repair the damage done by the Trump administration, colleagues from around the global Arctic are optimistic once again about partnering with America on solutions to regional crises .