INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
Spring 2012
Technology & Policy – A New Belfer Center Blog
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
Technology+Policy | Innovation@Work offers a platform for exchange of views on matters at the intersection of science, technology and public policy. Principal bloggers are Harvard faculty and Fellows from across the Belfer Center, the Kennedy School, and Harvard University.
March 2012
"Incentives and Stability of International Climate Coalitions: An Integrated Assessment"
Discussion Paper
By Valentina Bosetti, Carlo Carraro, Enrica De Cian, Emanuele Massetti and Massimo Tavoni
"A successful international climate policy framework will have to meet two conditions, build a coalition of countries that is potentially effective and give each member country sufficient incentives to join and remain in this coalition. Such coalition should be capable of delivering ambitious emission reduction even if some countries do not take mitigation action. In addition, it should meet the target without exceedingly high mitigation costs and deliver a net benefit to member countries as a whole. The novel contribution of this paper is mostly methodological, but it also adds a better qualification of well-known results that are policy relevant."
March 2012
"A Good Opening: The Key to Make the Most of Unilateral Climate Action"
Discussion Paper
By Valentina Bosetti and Enrica De Cian
In a new Harvard Project Discussion Paper, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei's Valentina Bosetti and Enrica De Cian model the behavior of countries not participating in a cooperative climate regime. The regime imposes counterbalancing influences upon these countries, but under some conditions they may act to both reduce emissions and increase clean-energy R&D
November 2011
Transforming U.S. Energy Innovation
Report
By Laura Diaz Anadon, Associate Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program; Director, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group; Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom, Gabe Chan, Research Fellow, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group, Melissa Chan, Former Research Fellow, Energy Research, Development, Demonstration & Deployment Policy Project, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group, January 2009–December 2010, Charles Jones, Associate, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group, Ruud Kempener, Former Research Fellow, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group, 2009–2011, Audrey Lee, Former Research Fellow, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group, 2009–2011, Nathaniel Logar, Associate, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program/Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group and Venkatesh "Venky" Narayanamurti, Benjamin Peirce Professor of Technology and Public Policy; Professor of Physics, Harvard; Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program; Co-Principal Investigator, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group
The United States and the world need a revolution in energy technology—a revolution that would improve the performance of our energy systems to face the challenges ahead. In an intensely competitive and interdependent global landscape, and in the face of large climate risks from ongoing U.S. reliance on a fossil-fuel based energy system, it is important to maintain and expand long-term investments in the energy future of the U.S. even at a time of budget stringency. It is equally necessary to think about how to improve the efficiency of those investments, through strengthening U.S. energy innovation institutions, providing expanded incentives for private-sector innovation, and seizing opportunities where international cooperation can accelerate innovation. The private sector role is key: in the United States the vast majority of the energy system is owned by private enterprises, whose innovation and technology deployment decisions drive much of the country's overall energy systems.
AP Photo
September 16, 2011
"Preventing the Next Fukushima"
Magazine or Newspaper Article, Science, volume 333
By Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom and Olli Heinonen, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"If nuclear power is to grow on the scale required to be a significant part of the solution to global climate disruption or scarcity of fossil fuels, major steps are needed to rebuild confidence that nuclear facilities will be safe from accidents and secure against attacks."
U.S. Dept. of Energy
June 2011
"Recommendations for Limiting Transfers of Enrichment and Reprocessing Technologies"
Policy Brief
By Fred McGoldrick, Associate, Project on Managing the Atom
For several years, the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) has been unable to reach a consensus on the adoption of revised guidelines for its members. The most contentious issue is how to strengthen restraints on the transfer of enrichment and reprocessing (E&R) technologies in a manner that would be acceptable to all NSG members, and credible to the major exporting states and the nuclear industry. This issue will be back on the agenda this month when the NSG meets in plenary session.
April 2011
International Workshop on Research, Development, and Demonstration to Enhance the Role of Nuclear Energy in Meeting Climate and Energy Challenges
Report
By Laura Diaz Anadon, Associate Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program; Director, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group; Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, Valentina Bosetti, Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom, Michela Catenacci and Audrey Lee, Former Research Fellow, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group, 2009–2011
Dramatic growth in nuclear energy would be required for nuclear power to provide a significant part of the carbon-free energy the world is likely to need in the 21st century, or a major part in meeting other energy challenges. This would require increased support from governments, utilities, and publics around the world. Achieving that support is likely to require improved economics and major progress toward resolving issues of nuclear safety, proliferation-resistance, and nuclear waste management. This is likely to require both research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) of improved technologies and new policy approaches.
Summer 2011
"New Geopolitics of Energy Project Weighs Fuel Options"
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
As the Arab Spring raises oil prices and concerns about energy security around the globe,the links between energy, international security, and global politics are more dramatic than ever. The new Geopolitics of Energy Project at the Belfer Center has set out to tackle some of the most intriguing and pressing issues at this intersection.
May, 2011
The Gulf Natural Gas Dual Pricing Regime: WTO Rules and Economic Growth in the Gulf Cooperation Council
Book
By Justin Dargin, Former Associate, The Dubai Initiative
Stakeholders in the international economy have long considered energy a crucial aspect of national sovereignty - a commodity inherently political in nature. Because of its contentious nature, energy and natural resources have been the source of conflicts for a millennia. With the sharp increase of the international price of oil and natural gas from 2002-2008, energy subsidization in the energy-rich exporting countries assumed center stage. A narrow focus on this new dynamic, however, obscures the basic issue that developed and developing countries tend to view energy in fundamentally contradictory ways. For developed, OECD countries energy is primarily a tool used to promote the smooth running of the global economy. This new book discusses the role and development of energy in emerging regions.
March 21, 2011
The European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council
Presentation
By Justin Dargin, Former Associate, The Dubai Initiative
Dubai Initiative Fellow Justin Dargin presents at the Dubai School of Government a lecture on the EU's energy policy vis-a-vis the Gulf Cooperation Council.
