Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs - Environmental policy

Obama’s Dilemma: The Keystone XL Pipeline Decision

Zahra Hirji — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:17:21 -0500

April 30, 2013

David Keith, Michael Levi, and Elana Schor discussed how the media influence public debate on the Keystone XL decision during a special seminar sponsored by the Environment and Natural Resources Program.

Economics of Climate Change and Environmental Policy: Selected Papers of Robert N. Stavins, 2000–2011

Robert N. Stavins — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 18:25:39 -0500

Professor Robert Stavins, Harvard Project Director, recently published the second volume of his collected papers with Edward Elgar Publishing. The 26 essays in the volume cover a wide range of topics, including: environmental policy analysis; economic analysis of environmental policy instruments; economics and technical change; natural resource economics — land and water; and domestic and international climate change policy. The first volume of Professor Stavins' papers was published in 2000 — also by Edward Elgar — covering the period 1988–1999.

Climate Conference Moves Forward – Slowly

Robert C. Stowe — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 07:45:30 -0500

In December, the member nations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change met in Doha, Qatar for the Eighteenth Conference of the Parties (COP-18) to discuss climate change on a global level. The Harvard Project on Climate Agreements co-hosted, with the government of Qatar, an event entitled "After Doha: Balancing Adaptation, Mitigation, and Economic Development."

Climate Reporting from the Inside

Andrew Facini — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 07:44:08 -0500

Domestically, the issue of climate change is again heating up, following President Obama’s State of the Union speech, where he surprised many by discussing the issue more openly and at greater length than anticipated. An “insider’s viewpoint” of the political environment on climate change was presented by veteran Washington Post reporter Juliet Eilperin in January.

The Next Frontier in United States Unconventional Shale Gas and Tight Oil Extraction: Strategic Reduction of Environmental Impact

Meagan Mauter, Vanessa R. Palmer, Yiqiao Tang and A. Patrick Behrer — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 16:04:30 -0500

The unconventional fossil fuel extraction industry—in the U.S., primarily shale gas and tight oil—is expected to continue expanding dramatically in coming decades as conventionally recoverable reserves wane. At the global scale, a long-term domestic supply of natural gas is expected to yield environmental benefits over alternative sources of fossil energy. At the local level, however, the environmental impacts of shale gas and tight oil development may be significant. The development of technology, management practices, and regulatory policies that mitigate the associated environmental impacts of shale gas development is quickly becoming the next frontier in U.S. unconventional fossil resource extraction.

China Needs More People Power to Control Pollution

Scott Moore — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 16:38:07 -0500

"China's major cities have long been notorious for their high levels of air and water pollution, but such visible signs of threats to human health are thrusting environmental hazards into the public eye like never before. The Chinese government has taken some steps to address public concern at these hazards, but if either history or the experience of other countries is any guide, Beijing needs to take public opinion seriously to avoid future environmental crises."

More than One Way to Skin a Policy

Andrew Facini — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 17:00:28 -0600

Washington Post national environment reporter Juliet Eilperin spoke on the political difficulties of pursuing environmental policy in a seminar titled "Covering Environmental Controversies in a Political Environment" at the Harvard Kennedy School.

The People are Beijing's Ally in Fight for Cleaner Air

Scott Moore — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 17:13:50 -0600

"Beijing needs to learn, as other nations have, that popular participation is necessary to force entrenched business and bureaucratic interests to help clean up the environment. Until this happens, the US embassy's air quality monitor will continue to say what Chinese officials will not: China and its capital are gasping for air."

Shell's Arctic Troubles Only Buy Time

Juliette Kayyem — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 08:31:03 -0600

"...[T]o believe that the market will maintain its current risk assessment forever is to believe in the power of magical thinking. The economic and political stakes are overwhelmingly in favor of drilling. The White House is pushing for domestic sources of energy. Alaska's elected and tribal leadership will gain much from taxes on new economic activity. And our foreign competitors near the Arctic circle — including Russia, which sent an oil tanker through the Arctic during in December — are ready to plunge into the cold."

Q&A with David Keith

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 07:12:19 -0600

David Keith is Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. The award-winning scientist, who was named one of TIME magazine's Heroes of the Environment in 2009, has worked near the interface of climate science, energy technology, and public policy for twenty years. He divides his time between Boston and Calgary, where he serves as president of Carbon Engineering—a start-up company developing industrial-scale technologies for capture of CO₂ from ambient air. Here, Keith answers questions about his research and ideas for reducing climate change using innovative and sometimes controversial methods.

The SO2 Allowance Trading System: The Ironic History of a Grand Policy Experiment

Richard Schmalensee and Robert N. Stavins — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 15:24:47 -0500

In a new discussion paper, authors Richard Schmalensee, professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Robert N. Stavins, director of the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, explore four ironic outcomes associated with the otherwise very successful sulfur-dioxide cap-and-trade system created by the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990.

In Galapagos Islands, Influx Prompts a Harsh Migration Policy

Juliette Kayyem — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 13:41:31 -0500

"In an effort to help save the islands 600 miles into the Pacific Ocean, Ecuador's controversial president, Rafael Correa, has adopted one of the strictest migration enforcement efforts in the history of mankind. It is as though the United States took the same unforgiving rules it uses to limit the influx of foreigners and used them to keep Americans from going to the state of Hawaii."

North American Oil and Gas Reserves: Prospects and Policy

Jonathan Bailey and Henry Lee — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 13:46:09 -0500

Expanding estimates of North America’s supply of accessible shale gas, and more recently, shale oil, have been trumpeted in many circles as the most significant energy resource development since the oil boom in Texas in the late 1920s. How large are these resources? What challenges will need to be overcome if their potential is to be realized? How will they impact U.S. energy policy?

To address these questions, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and two of its programs ― the Environment and Natural Resources Program and the Geopolitics of Energy Project ― convened a group of experts from business, government, and academia on May 1, 2012, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The following report summarizes the major issues discussed at this workshop. Since the discussions were off-the-record, no comments are attributed to any individual. Rather, this report attempts to summarize the arguments on all sides of the issues.

A New Case for Promoting Wastewater Reuse in Saudi Arabia: Bringing Energy into the Water Equation

Arani Kajenthira, Afreen Siddiqi and Laura Diaz Anadon — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 19:07:52 -0500

Saudi Arabia is the third-largest per capita water user worldwide and has addressed the disparity between its renewable water resources and domestic demand primarily through desalination and the abstraction of non-renewable groundwater. This study evaluates the potential costs of this approach in the industrial and municipal sectors, exploring economic, energy, and environmental costs (including CO₂ emissions and possible coastal impacts). Although the energy intensity of desalination is a global concern, it is particularly urgent to rethink water supply options in Saudi Arabia because the entirety of its natural gas production is consumed domestically, primarily in petrochemical and desalination plants.

New study by Harvard Kennedy School researcher forecasts sharp increase in world oil production capacity, and risk of price collapse

James F. Smith — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 10:41:25 -0500

A new study by Belfer Center fellow Leonardo Maugeri shows that oil production capacity is surging in the United States and several other countries at such a fast pace that global oil output capacity is likely to grow by nearly 20 percent by 2020. This could prompt a plunge or even a collapse in oil prices. The findings by Maugeri, a former oil industry executive who is now a fellow in the Geopolitics of Energy Project in the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, are based on an original field-by-field analysis of the world’s major oil formations and exploration projects.

Intensive Workshops Examine Energy Technologies, Future of Oil and Gas Reserves

Traci Farrell — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:15:33 -0500

A group of American and European academics working on understanding the future prospects of energy technologies and the role of governments shaping these prospects gathered at Harvard Kennedy School in April. Hosted by Laura Diaz Anadon, director of the Energy Technology Innovation Policy.... the group discussed the need to incorporate uncertainty around technical change, the challenges of utilizing expert elicitations to inform policy decisions using models, and future collaborative work combining different expert elicitations and different energy-economic models.

Roy Family Supports Student Engagement in Environmental Efforts

Traci Farrell — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:13:37 -0500

The Roy Family Summer Environmental Internship supports returning Kennedy School students interested in specific internships for public, private, or non-profit organizations abroad or in the United States. These paid scholarships allow students to participate in innovative summer projects that would ordinarily not offer a salary. There are four award recipients for 2012, and each received a $6,500 stipend to work with organizations that are not able to hire an intern.

Film Series Promotes Environmental Activism

Traci Farrell — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:12:08 -0500

Organized by Environment and Natural Resources Assistant Director Amanda Sardonis and senior fellow Cristine Russell, ENRP kicked off its 2012 Environmental Film Series with screenings of three widely heralded documentaries: “The Last Mountain,” directed by Bill Haney focuses on citizens fighting to prevent large coal companies from practicing mountain top removal in their town.... “A Fierce Green Fire: The Battle for a Living Planet,” directed by Mark Kitchell, highlights the major environmental movements from the last 50 years, while "The Grand Energy Transition: Natural Gas - The Bridge To Our Sustainable Future," directed by Belfer Center International Council Member Robert A. Hefner III argues that natural gas is the future of U.S. energy.

New Policy Idea: Buy Coal! A Case for Supply-Side Environmental Policy

Bryan Galcik — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 19:53:49 -0500

Bard Harstad, Associate Professor of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, recently released a study, "Buy Coal! A Case for Supply-Side Environmental Policy," which will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Political Economy.

The Role of Qualitative Risk Assessment in Environmental Management: A Kazakhstani Case Study

Arani Kajenthira, John Holmes and Rachael McDonnell — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 19:45:50 -0500

Successful environmental management is partly contingent on the effective recognition and communication of environmental health risks to the public. Yet risk perceptions are known to differ between experts and laypeople; laypeople often exhibit higher perceptions of risk in comparison to experts, particularly when these risks are associated with radiation, nuclear power, or nuclear waste. This paper consequently explores stakeholder risk perceptions associated with a mercury-contaminated chloralkali production facility in Kazakhstan.

Ocean Planning and Massachusetts

Juliette Kayyem — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:38:02 -0600

"People like the oceans; over 50 percent of Americans live near one. The oil industry believes it has much to gain from unregulated ocean space, but Big Oil isn't as sympathetic as Little Fishermen. So those bait-fishers have become the perfect bait to undermine the ocean policy."

Harvard Project on Climate Agreements Hosts Chinese Climate Change Study Tour

Robert C. Stowe — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:18:49 -0600

The Harvard Project on Climate Agreements hosted, on January 10, 2012, a study tour of Chinese officials working in climate and energy policy. The tour was organized by the World Resources Institute's China office. The study tour and several members of the Harvard faculty discussed options and prospects for international policy to address global climate change.

The SO2 Allowance Trading System and the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990: Reflections on Twenty Years of Policy Innovation

Gabe Chan, Robert N. Stavins, Robert C. Stowe and Richard Sweeney — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:30:46 -0600

The introduction of the U.S. SO₂ allowance-trading program to address the threat of acid rain as part of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 is a landmark event in the history of environmental regulation. The program was a great success by almost all measures. Ironically, cap and trade seems especially well suited to addressing the problem of climate change, in that emitted greenhouse gases are evenly distributed throughout the world's atmosphere. Recent hostility toward cap and trade in debates about U.S. climate legislation may reflect the broader political environment of the climate debate more than the substantive merits of market-based regulation.

Profile: Calestous Juma

Calestous Juma — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 20:18:12 -0600

"The Rio+20 process is an important reminder of the urgency to guide global production and consumption patterns with sustainability principles. Sadly, there is really no genuine global institution that is championing sustainable development. The vision that inspired Rio has been supplanted by two extreme positions. The first is a group that believes economic growth will have trickle-down benefits for the environment. The environmental camp has successfully replaced the spirit of Rio with a one-sided agenda that leaves little room for recognising the central role that human wellbeing plays in natural resource management."

Climate Change and the Kiribati Syndrome

Juliette Kayyem — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 23:58:48 -0600

"Nothing gets a nation like ours worked up more than the notion that people will try to desperately get here and seek humanitarian relief. Many Republicans who are seeking to run this nation may not put any stock in climate science, but they believe in immigration controls."

The Promise and Problems of Pricing Carbon: Theory and Experience

Joseph E. Aldy and Robert N. Stavins — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:28:00 -0600

Because of the global commons nature of climate change, international cooperation among nations will likely be necessary for meaningful action at the global level. At the same time, it will inevitably be up to the actions of sovereign nations to put in place policies that bring about meaningful reductions in the emissions of greenhouse gases. Due to the ubiquity and diversity of emissions of greenhouse gases in most economies, as well as the variation in abatement costs among individual sources, conventional environmental policy approaches, such as uniform technology and performance standards, are unlikely to be sufficient to the task. Therefore, attention has increasingly turned to market-based instruments in the form of carbon-pricing mechanisms. We examine the opportunities and challenges associated with the major options for carbon pricing: carbon taxes, cap-and-trade, emission reduction credits, clean energy standards, and fossil fuel subsidy reductions.

Researchers Draft Blueprint to Boost Energy Innovation

James F. Smith — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 08:55:23 -0600

The U.S. government could save the economy hundreds of billions of dollars per year by 2050 by spending a few billion dollars more a year to spur innovations in energy technology, according to a new report by researchers at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. The three-year project by the Belfer Center's Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group calls for doubling investment and adopting policy changes in energy technology.

Governing Climate Engineering: Scenarios for Analysis

Daniel Bodansky — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 17:22:45 -0600

Geoengineering grows in salience, the more time that passes without an effective international regime for mitigating climate change. It will be in the background of negotiations at COP 17 in Durban—and, perhaps, in the foreground of some important discussions. This discussion paper by Daniel Bodansky explores the opportunities and risks presented by geoengineering, as well as the particular challenges to crafting an effective system of governance for this set of approaches to addressing climate change

New Book from Former Harvard Environmental Economics Program Pre-Doctoral Fellow Gernot Wagner on Effective Environmental Economic Policy

Robert C. Stowe — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 15:54:44 -0600

The core message of But Will the Planet Notice?—presented with both rigor and wit—is that the actions of individuals can do very little to solve major environment problems, including climate change, species preservation, and water scarcity. What's required is economic policy that motivates large portions of the population—and major industrial sectors—to reduce pollution and use resources more efficiently.

Re-thinking the Fracking Debate

Juliette Kayyem — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 08:12:40 -0500

"Natural gas is a big deal, and fracking has transformed energy policies. Natural gas now constitutes 25 percent of US energy consumption. In only 10 years, shale gas, released through fracking, has risen from 2 to 30 percent of all natural-gas production. Shale depositories in states as geographically diverse as Texas, Montana, and New York have made the US essentially self-sufficient in natural-gas production, and even potentially an exporter of the commodity."