Environment & Climate Change

David Keith is the Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, housed at the Belfer Center. He has worked at the interface between climate science, energy technology, and public policy for 20 years and has received numerous honors for his work, including the MIT prize for excellence in experimental physics and TIME magazine’s selection as one of its Heroes of the Environment.

"Belfer Center participants in the 2009 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (UNFCCC) agreed that while the summit did not produce the treaty most wanted, it did make some significant progress. They disagree, however, on how much. Professors JeffreyFrankel, Kelly Sims Gallagher, and Robert Stavins, all members of the Belfer Center Board of Directors, offer their takeaways from the event."

Notable quotes from opeds and testimonies.

With both China and the United States relying heavily on coal for electricity, senior government officials from both countries have urged immediate action to push forward technology that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired plants. They discussed possible actions at a high-level workshop in April jointly sponsored by the Belfer Center's Energy Technology Innovation Policy (ETIP) research group, China's Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

For a Center committed to advancing policy-relevant knowledge about the most important international challenges, the current avalanche of seemingly insurmountable challenges is a time of great excitement.

The Belfer Center is both proud and humbled that a number of its members have been asked to serve in the Obama Administration. The group's experience and expertise span many of the international challenges confronting the nation today.

The Belfer Center hosted former Vice President and Nobel Laureate Al Gore and 30 of the United States' top energy and climate experts in October for a "Solutions Summit" on the climate challenge ... participants brainstormed concrete solutions to producing carbon-free electricity, using as a starting point Gore’s July 2008 Generational Challenge to Repower America, which calls on the nation to produce 100 percent of America's electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within ten years.