Environment & Climate Change

Let’s not make a fetish of the Paris agreement. It is not NATO. It is not even NAFTA. It is a nonbinding accord, dependent on voluntary commitments.

Withdrawing from the Paris agreement is bad for science-based decision making, national and energy security, and innovation.

Foreign policy experts said the move could damage the United States’ credibility and weaken Mr. Trump’s efforts to negotiate issues far beyond climate change, like trade and terrorism.

“From a foreign policy perspective, it’s a colossal mistake — an abdication of American leadership,” said R. Nicholas Burns, a retired career diplomat and an under secretary of state for President George W. Bush.

“The success of our foreign policy — in trade, military, any other kind of negotiation — depends on our credibility,” Mr. Burns said. “I can’t think of anything more destructive to our credibility than this.”

As assistant to the president for science and technology, director of the White House Office for Science and Technology Policy, and co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), Holdren has worked closely with Obama to reinvigorate America’s scientific capabilities on a range of policy fronts, from climate change and renewable energy to health care and nanotechnology.

Senior Fellow of the Future of Diplomacy Project, David Ignatius examines the Navy’s energy diet that began seven years ago with an edict from newly appointed Secretary Ray Mabus, who issued five goals for radically changing how the Navy bought and consumed fuel.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi traveled to Washington last week, making his fourth trip to the United States since taking office just two years ago. India and South Asia Program Fellow, Ronak Desai examines the strategic approach to India's relations with the United States.

As part of the India and South Asia Program’s annual speaker series, Ambassador MaleehaLodhi, the Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to the United Nations discussed her country’s regional agenda.

Was the Paris Climate Conference of 2015 a key step in stopping climate change? We asked the Belfer Center's Robert Stavins and David Keith to give us their answers to that question. They agreed to disagree in some of their answers and comments.