Environment & Climate Change

The Environment and Natural Resources Program at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs announced today that ColdHubs Limited is the winner of the 2022 Roy Family Award for Environmental Partnership. The company—born out of a partnership between the Smallholders Foundation, the Institute for Air Handling and Refrigeration (ILK Dresden), and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)—uses solar-powered walk-in cold rooms to reduce post-harvest losses for smallholder farmers across rural Nigeria.

This research note provides insights on the role of nature-based solutions for carbon mitigation in India, including scenario simulations by 2050. The results show that forests, trees, and agroforestry can provide major carbon reductions through sustainable land use nationwide, helping India to offset carbon emissions from hard-to-abate sectors.

What if we could repurpose oil and gas pipelines to supply remote Arctic communities with clean water? What if Arctic entrepreneurs could connect with investors and raise capital over an online crowdfunding platform? These were some of the novel solutions to Arctic challenges proposed by Harvard Kennedy School students during this year’s Arctic Innovation Lab in January.

In late 2017, Mexico made headlines as Italian company Enel bid what was then a world-record low price for renewable energy in the country’s third such energy auction. This development was possible due to the historical and sweeping energy reforms passed with broad support in Mexico in 2013. Then-President Enrique Peña Nieto had succeeded where previous Mexican presidents had failed, reversing decades of resource nationalism and overhauling the energy sector through constitutional reforms that gave the private sector a larger role and advantaged renewable energy in Mexico’s economy. The 2017 auction seemed to indicate Mexico’s bright future not only as a conventional oil producer, but also as a clean energy power.

At COP26, the focus on adaptation was more prominent than ever due to the escalating impacts of climate change, elevating adaptation to the same level as mitigation.

An extensive canal irrigation network in South Asia has developed over the past 170 years that consists of thousands of kilometers of constructed channels and distributaries. These canals cut across many energy-poor regions along their paths. In India, this canal network provides a unique opportunity for renewable energy generation that is yet to be realized.

At the Arctic Frontiers 2021 conference, Joel Clement delivered the keynote address for the "Building the future" panel. His inspirational speech was an ode to empowering youth and building a resilient Arctic — and a reflection on the discussions of the 2020 Arctic Resilience Forum.

At one point in human history, water’s importance in war went beyond bearing convoys, hiding submarines, and slaking soldiers’ thirst. Water was often itself a weapon. In areas where it was scarce, armies took action to make it scarcer to force besieged enemy cities to capitulate, and in areas where it was abundant, combatants destroyed dams and watched the resulting floods carry their adversaries away. Today, however, most combatants recoil at the use of water as a weapon, and only the most depraved deploy it.

Joel Clement describes the Leaders Summit on Climate, held on April 23, 2021, as making a strong point that the Biden administration is up to the challenge of combating climate change.

Since the end of World War II, nation-states in international conflict have made concerted efforts to restrain the weaponization of water. Distinct from realist and rationalist explanations, the historical record reveals the rise of an international normative inhibition—a “water taboo”—on using water as a weapon.