Environment & Climate Change

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.

The Project on Managing the Atom offers fellowships for pre-doctoral, post-doctoral, and mid-career researchers for one year, with a possibility for renewal, in the stimulating environment of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. The online application for 2016-2017 fellowships opened December 15, 2015, and the application deadline is January 15, 2016. Recommendation letters are due by February 1, 2016.

Cambridge, MA – The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs has named Daniel Schrag, Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology and Director of the Center for the Environment at Harvard University, to lead its Science, Technology, and Public Policy program. STPP, one of Harvard's most collaborative and cross-disciplinary programs, is renowned world-wide for its cutting-edge research on technology innovation, nuclear non-proliferation and safety, climate science and policy, cybersecurity, and globalization and development.

"Given the budgetary constraints under which spacefaring nations like the United States and India operate, cooperation is a valuable means to furthering our understanding of Earth's ecosystem."

In recent years the major focus of China’s engagement in Africa has been on economic diplomacy. Much of this debate has been influenced by concerns over China’s rise as an economic superpower and the preoccupation with viewing Africa through the jaded natural resource lens. A closer look at Africa’s growing economic diplomacy reveals a more complex picture involving other important emerging market economies as illustrated by economic relations with Brazil. Africa’s relations with Brazil highlight the emergence of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) as a new economic alliance that is reshaping international trading relations.

  Critics of agricultural biotechnology have long contended that it would not benefit farmers in developing countries. Their concerns were not unjustified. A large number of technologies continue to be restricted to industrialized countries despite their global relevance. Farmers in developing countries, however, are bridging the “biotechnology divide.” According to a new report by Clive James of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), “For the first time, developing countries grew more, 52% of global biotech crops in 2012 than industrialized countries at 48%.

Africa’s economic growth outlook has come into sharp focus recently. Some analysts have argued that claims about “Africa Rising” are a myth. Others argue that Africa’s growth is underestimated. These contrasting views, however, pay little attention to major trends that are shaping the continent: deepening regional integration; shifting trade relations; and the rise of technocratic presidencies. Deepening Regional Integration African economies are generally viewed as being too dependent on global trends.

Inequality between men and women remains one of the most critical sources of low economic productivity in Africa. Many of the efforts seek to address the challenge by creating new training institutions. A complementary strategy is to identify and upgrade promising local initiatives. In her preface to the new Gender Equality and Female Empowerment, of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton states that achieving US global development objectives “will demand accelerated efforts to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment.