INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
J. Stump
April 29, 2002
"The Struggle for a National Energy Policy"
Presentation
By John P. Holdren, Former Director and Faculty Chair, Science, Technology and Public Policy Program
Organized by the United Nations Foundation and the Turner Foundation, held at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Washington, DC.
June 1998
"The Human Development Index: A Critical Review"
Journal Article, Ecological Economics, issue 3, volume 25
By Ambuj D. Sagar, Associate, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program
This paper evaluates how well the annual United Nations Human Development Reports (HDRs) have lived up to their own conceptual mandate and assesses the ability of the HDI to further the development debate.
February 7, 2013
"What's the Most Critical and Under-appreciated Issue in International Security? World Peace"
Op-Ed, Power & Policy Blog
By Scott Moore, Giorgio Ruffolo Doctoral Research Fellow, Sustainability Science Program/Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group
"...[I]t is clear that the international community possessed neither the analytic tools nor the institutional capabilities to deal with a world order in which ethno-religious groups, and not nation-states, were the primary operative actors. Which brings us back to the question: what if organized state violence and warfare is the exception rather than the rule in international security?"
Wikimedia Commons
January 5, 2013
The American Woman Who Wrote Equal Rights Into Japan's Constitution
Op-Ed, The Atlantic
By Cristine Russell, Senior Fellow, Environment and Natural Resources Program
American efforts to pass an Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution have failed since the early 1920s. But, in 1946, a 22-year-old naturalized American citizen participating in a secret crash project in occupied postwar Japan succeeded in writing two strikingly simple but powerful clauses into the modern Japanese constitution that stipulate equality among the sexes as well as civil rights for women involving marriage, money, and family.
AP Photo/John Giles
July 2012
"Post-Durban Climate Policy Architecture Based on Linkage of Cap-and-Trade Systems"
Discussion Paper
By Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements and Matthew Ranson
The outcome of the December 2011 United Nations climate negotiations in Durban, South Africa, provides an important new opportunity to move toward an international climate policy architecture that is capable of delivering broad international participation and significant global CO2 emissions reductions at reasonable cost. This paper addresses an important component of potential climate policy architecture for the post-Durban era: links among independent tradable permit systems for greenhouse gases.
AP Photo
November 2011
The Promise and Problems of Pricing Carbon: Theory and Experience
Discussion Paper
By Joseph E. Aldy, Faculty Affiliate, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements and Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
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.
September 23, 2011
Belfer Center Welcomes New Research Fellows
News
By Sharon Wilke, Associate Director of Communications
Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs this week announced its 2011-12 research fellows. The Belfer Center is the hub of research, teaching, and training in international security affairs and diplomacy, environmental and resource issues, science and technology policy, and conflict studies at Harvard Kennedy School; the heart of the Center is its resident research community. The 32 new fellows join 30 continuing fellows drawn from governments, academia, and the public and private sector.
October 2011
Carbon Coalitions: Business, Climate Politics, and the Rise of Emissions Trading
Book
By Jonas Meckling, Former Research Fellow, Geopolitics of Energy Project, 2010–2012; Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, 2009–2010; Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group, 2007–2009
Over the past decade, carbon trading has emerged as the industrialized world's primary policy response to global climate change despite considerable controversy. With carbon markets worth $144 billion in 2009, carbon trading represents the largest manifestation of the trend toward market-based environmental governance. In Carbon Coalitions, Jonas Meckling presents the first comprehensive study on the rise of carbon trading and the role business played in making this policy instrument a central pillar of global climate governance.
Summer 2011
Belfer Center Newsletter Summer 2011
Newsletter
By Sharon Wilke, Associate Director of Communications
The Summer 2011 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features analysis and advice by Belfer Center scholars regarding the historic upheavals in the Middle East and the disastrous consequences of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The Center’s new Geopolitics of Energy project is also highlighted, along with efforts by the Project on Managing the Atom to strengthen nuclear export rules.
AP Photo
May 2011
"The Globalization of Carbon Trading: Transnational Business Coalitions in Climate Politics"
Journal Article, Global Environmental Politics, issue 2, volume 11
By Jonas Meckling, Former Research Fellow, Geopolitics of Energy Project, 2010–2012; Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, 2009–2010; Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group, 2007–2009
Over the last decade, carbon trading has emerged as the policy instrument of choice in the industrialized world to address global climate change. This paper argues that a transnational business coalition, representing mostly energy firms and energy-intensive manufacturers, actively promoted the global rise of carbon trading. In this process, business could draw on the support of government allies and business-oriented environmental groups, particularly in the UK and the US.
