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Former European Commission Climate Negotiator Jos Delbeke Shares Firsthand Account of Carbon Pricing Evolution in New Episode of “Environmental Insights”

Jos Delbeke, Professor at the European University Institute in Florence and at the KU Leuven in Belgium, recounted the evolution of carbon pricing and voiced his optimism for further international efforts to combat climate change in the newest episode of “Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program.”




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The Potential Promises and Pitfalls of Solar Geoengineering: An Interview with David Keith

Professor Robert Stavins interviews David Keith, Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, considered one of the world's leading scholars on solar geoengineering.




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Harvard Professor David Keith Discusses Potential Promises and Pitfalls of Solar Geoengineering in New Episode of "Environmental Insights"

David Keith, Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, discussed his groundbreaking research and policy work in the field of solar geoengineering in the newest episode of “Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program.” Listen to the interview here.




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Oil Markets Provide a Glimpse of the Post-Pandemic Future

Henry Kissinger warns that many existing domestic and international institutions that have helped govern the past decades will not survive the Covid-19 crisis. He is surely correct.




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An Abysmal Failure of Leadership

During times of crisis, the most effective leaders are those who can build solidarity by educating the public about its own interests. Sadly, in the case of COVID-19, the leaders of the world's two largest economies have gone in the opposite direction, all but ensuring that the crisis will deepen.




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The Dire Consequences of Trump's Suleimani Decision

Americans would be wise to brace for war with Iran, writes Susan Rice.

"Full-scale conflict is not a certainty, but the probability is higher than at any point in decades. Despite President Trump’s oft-professed desire to avoid war with Iran and withdraw from military entanglements in the Middle East, his decision to order the killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran’s second most important official, as well as Iraqi leaders of an Iranian-backed militia, now locks our two countries in a dangerous escalatory cycle that will likely lead to wider warfare."




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The battle of 'resistance' vs 'revolution' in the Middle East

The events surrounding the US assassination of Iranian Quds Force leader Major General Qassem Soleimani brought to the surface the two main ideological forces that now battle each other across the Middle East - the anti-imperial "resistance" of Iran and its Arab allies, and the freedom "revolution" of domestic protesters in the same lands. 




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Rami Khouri's interview on Aljazeera TV discussing the appointment of the new Lebanese government.

Rami Khouri's interview on Aljazeera TV discussing the appointment of the new Lebanese government amidst continuing protests and clashes with police.




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H-Diplo Review Essay 192 on Lawson. Anatomies of Revolution

Emily Whalen reviews Anatomies of Revolution by George Lawson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).




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The Future of the Transatlantic Defense Relationship: Views from Finland and the EU

February 7, 2020: With the advent of the digital age and the rise of Russia and China as global powers, the EU must do more to defend itself and its relationship with the United States, according to Janne Kuusela, Director General Janne Kuusela. In an event moderated by  Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook, Executive Director of the Future of Diplomacy Project and the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship he explained why Finland could be a potential paradigm for the EU’s defense strategy. 

 




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An Abysmal Failure of Leadership

During times of crisis, the most effective leaders are those who can build solidarity by educating the public about its own interests. Sadly, in the case of COVID-19, the leaders of the world's two largest economies have gone in the opposite direction, all but ensuring that the crisis will deepen.




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Green Ambitions, Brown Realities: Making Sense of Renewable Investment Strategies in the Gulf

Gulf countries have hailed their investments in renewable energy, but some basic questions remain about the extent to which it makes sense for GCC states to invest aggressively in renewables. The sheer magnitude of such investments will require these countries to mobilize significant public resources.  Therefore, such an assessment requires these countries to focus on national interests, not just a desire to be perceived as constructive participants in the global transition away from carbon energy. 

This report starts by identifying four common strategic justifications for investing in renewable energy in GCC countries. Each of these rationales highlights a different aspect of renewable energy investments. In addition, each rationale is based on different assumptions about the underlying drivers of such investments, and each rationale is based on different assumptions about the future of energy. 
 




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Center Experts Comment on Significance of Withdrawing from INF Treaty

Following the news that the Trump administration plans to abandon the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, signed in 1987 by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, ten Belfer Center nuclear and U.S.-Russia relations experts offered their thoughts on the significance and consequences of this action.
 




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Putin’s Remarks on Use of Nuclear Weapons Are Confusing, But Unlikely to Constitute a Shift in Nuclear Posture

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s eschatological talk of nuclear Armageddon at this year’s Valdai forum has stirred up heated debates on how well his description of Russia’s potential use of nuclear weapons matches the country’s official military doctrine. However, a close look at Putin’s Oct. 18 remarks and Russia’s 2014 military doctrine reveals that, while Putin deviated from the language in the doctrine, he did not lie on the first use issue. Nor did he seem to be hinting at a shift in Russia’s nuclear posture. More likely, he was signaling to Washington that the existing nuclear arms control treaties need to remain in place for the sake of ensuring strategic stability in the U.S.-Russian nuclear dyad and avoiding an accidental war between the two countries.




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How High Is Risk of Nuclear War Between Russia and US?

Former U.S. Energy Secretary Ernie Moniz and former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn argue in a new Foreign Affairs article that the threat of nuclear war between Russia and the U.S. is higher now than at any point since the Cuban Missile Crisis.




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Why Matter Matters: How Technology Characteristics Shape the Strategic Framing of Technologies

The authors investigate how the executives of the two largest research institutes for photovoltaic technologies — the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, USA and the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (Fraunhofer ISE) in Freiburg, Germany — have made use of public framing to secure funding and shape the technological development of solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies. The article shows that the executives used four framing dimensions (potential, prospect, performance, and progress) and three framing tactics (conclusion, conditioning, and concession), and that the choice of dimensions and tactics is tightly coupled to the characteristics of the specific technologies pursued by the research institutes.




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How Clean is the U.S. Steel Industry? An International Benchmarking of Energy and CO2 Intensities

In this report, the authors conduct a benchmarking analysis for energy and CO2 emissions intensity of the steel industry among the largest steel-producing countries.




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The Value of Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Sequestration

Growing concern around climate change has ignited recent interest in carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies and generated a series of studies on its global market potential.




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Geopolitical and Market Implications of Renewable Hydrogen: New Dependencies in a Low-Carbon Energy World

To accelerate the global transition to a low-carbon economy, all energy systems and sectors must be actively decarbonized. While hydrogen has been a staple in the energy and chemical industries for decades, renewable hydrogen is drawing increased attention today as a versatile and sustainable energy carrier with the potential to play an important piece in the carbon-free energy puzzle. Countries around the world are piloting new projects and policies, yet adopting hydrogen at scale will require innovating along the value chains; scaling technologies while significantly reducing costs; deploying enabling infrastructure; and defining appropriate national and international policies and market structures.

What are the general principles of how renewable hydrogen may reshape the structure of global energy markets? What are the likely geopolitical consequences such changes would cause? A deeper understanding of these nascent dynamics will allow policy makers and corporate investors to better navigate the challenges and maximize the opportunities that decarbonization will bring, without falling into the inefficient behaviors of the past.




of

Green Ambitions, Brown Realities: Making Sense of Renewable Investment Strategies in the Gulf

Gulf countries have hailed their investments in renewable energy, but some basic questions remain about the extent to which it makes sense for GCC states to invest aggressively in renewables. The sheer magnitude of such investments will require these countries to mobilize significant public resources.  Therefore, such an assessment requires these countries to focus on national interests, not just a desire to be perceived as constructive participants in the global transition away from carbon energy. 

This report starts by identifying four common strategic justifications for investing in renewable energy in GCC countries. Each of these rationales highlights a different aspect of renewable energy investments. In addition, each rationale is based on different assumptions about the underlying drivers of such investments, and each rationale is based on different assumptions about the future of energy. 
 




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Harvard Business School Professor Rebecca Henderson Outlines Ways Organizations are Changing in Response to the Coronavirus Pandemic and Climate Change in New Edition of "Environmental Insights"

Rebecca Henderson, the John and Natty McArthur University Professor at Harvard University, shared her perspectives on how large organizations are changing in response to the coronavirus pandemic and climate change in the newest episode of "Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program," a podcast produced by the Harvard Environmental Economics Program. Listen to the interview here. Listen to the interview here.




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Getting Smart on Pandemics: Intelligence in the Wake of COVID-19

This episode of Horns of a Dilemma touches on whether the failure to properly anticipate and warn about the novel coronavirus constitutes an intelligence failure, what changes might be required in the intelligence community in the wake of the pandemic, and what type of investigation or inquiry might be appropriate in order to learn lessons and incorporate changes for both the intelligence community and the whole of government moving forward.




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Bruce Schneier on Cybersecurity in the Age of Coronavirus

Is Zoom secure? What about your home computer? Cyber expert Bruce Schneier says that we all need to be aware of the things cyber criminals thrive on during the confusion caused by coronavirus.




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The Global Pandemic Has Spawned New Forms of Activism — and They're Flourishing

The authors have identified nearly 100 distinct methods of nonviolent action that include physical, virtual and hybrid actions.




of

An Abysmal Failure of Leadership

During times of crisis, the most effective leaders are those who can build solidarity by educating the public about its own interests. Sadly, in the case of COVID-19, the leaders of the world's two largest economies have gone in the opposite direction, all but ensuring that the crisis will deepen.




of

The Value of Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Sequestration

Growing concern around climate change has ignited recent interest in carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies and generated a series of studies on its global market potential.




of

Washington Should Take Action on AI or Stay Out of the Way

Federal and local regulations are part of the solution to tough issues related to Artificial Intelligence, writes K. Gretchen Greene, but no regulatory approach on its own can fully answer these questions today. "Finding answers will require significant investments in research and development, collaboration, negotiation, and experimentation, deep and careful thought across many fields and leadership at all levels, across and between governments. The U.S. federal government is well positioned to lead, but if it won't, it should at least stay out of the way."




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Bruce Schneier on Cybersecurity in the Age of Coronavirus

Is Zoom secure? What about your home computer? Cyber expert Bruce Schneier says that we all need to be aware of the things cyber criminals thrive on during the confusion caused by coronavirus.




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Considering Public Purpose in the Time of COVID-19

In this piece, we will look at the various public purpose considerations as they relate to the development of diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines for coronavirus. We explore the foreseeable risks to public safety of loosened regulation, ultimately arguing that even in times of crisis, accountable science and technology development is a choice we can make to protect the public and yield beneficial results, while considering both short- and long-term impacts. 




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Paradoxes of Professionalism: Rethinking Civil-Military Relations in the United States

The U.S. military’s prevailing norms of military professionalism are poorly suited to meet today’s civil-military challenges. They undermine the military’s nonpartisan and apolitical ethos, weaken civilian leaders' control of military activity, and undercut the country’s strategic effectiveness in armed conflict.




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Getting Smart on Pandemics: Intelligence in the Wake of COVID-19

This episode of Horns of a Dilemma touches on whether the failure to properly anticipate and warn about the novel coronavirus constitutes an intelligence failure, what changes might be required in the intelligence community in the wake of the pandemic, and what type of investigation or inquiry might be appropriate in order to learn lessons and incorporate changes for both the intelligence community and the whole of government moving forward.




of

The Global Pandemic Has Spawned New Forms of Activism — and They're Flourishing

The authors have identified nearly 100 distinct methods of nonviolent action that include physical, virtual and hybrid actions.




of

An Abysmal Failure of Leadership

During times of crisis, the most effective leaders are those who can build solidarity by educating the public about its own interests. Sadly, in the case of COVID-19, the leaders of the world's two largest economies have gone in the opposite direction, all but ensuring that the crisis will deepen.




of

Oil Markets Provide a Glimpse of the Post-Pandemic Future

Henry Kissinger warns that many existing domestic and international institutions that have helped govern the past decades will not survive the Covid-19 crisis. He is surely correct.




of

An Abysmal Failure of Leadership

During times of crisis, the most effective leaders are those who can build solidarity by educating the public about its own interests. Sadly, in the case of COVID-19, the leaders of the world's two largest economies have gone in the opposite direction, all but ensuring that the crisis will deepen.




of

The Value of Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Sequestration

Growing concern around climate change has ignited recent interest in carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies and generated a series of studies on its global market potential.




of

Washington Should Take Action on AI or Stay Out of the Way

Federal and local regulations are part of the solution to tough issues related to Artificial Intelligence, writes K. Gretchen Greene, but no regulatory approach on its own can fully answer these questions today. "Finding answers will require significant investments in research and development, collaboration, negotiation, and experimentation, deep and careful thought across many fields and leadership at all levels, across and between governments. The U.S. federal government is well positioned to lead, but if it won't, it should at least stay out of the way."




of

Bruce Schneier on Cybersecurity in the Age of Coronavirus

Is Zoom secure? What about your home computer? Cyber expert Bruce Schneier says that we all need to be aware of the things cyber criminals thrive on during the confusion caused by coronavirus.




of

Considering Public Purpose in the Time of COVID-19

In this piece, we will look at the various public purpose considerations as they relate to the development of diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines for coronavirus. We explore the foreseeable risks to public safety of loosened regulation, ultimately arguing that even in times of crisis, accountable science and technology development is a choice we can make to protect the public and yield beneficial results, while considering both short- and long-term impacts. 




of

The Value of Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Sequestration

Growing concern around climate change has ignited recent interest in carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies and generated a series of studies on its global market potential.




of

Washington Should Take Action on AI or Stay Out of the Way

Federal and local regulations are part of the solution to tough issues related to Artificial Intelligence, writes K. Gretchen Greene, but no regulatory approach on its own can fully answer these questions today. "Finding answers will require significant investments in research and development, collaboration, negotiation, and experimentation, deep and careful thought across many fields and leadership at all levels, across and between governments. The U.S. federal government is well positioned to lead, but if it won't, it should at least stay out of the way."




of

Bruce Schneier on Cybersecurity in the Age of Coronavirus

Is Zoom secure? What about your home computer? Cyber expert Bruce Schneier says that we all need to be aware of the things cyber criminals thrive on during the confusion caused by coronavirus.




of

Considering Public Purpose in the Time of COVID-19

In this piece, we will look at the various public purpose considerations as they relate to the development of diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines for coronavirus. We explore the foreseeable risks to public safety of loosened regulation, ultimately arguing that even in times of crisis, accountable science and technology development is a choice we can make to protect the public and yield beneficial results, while considering both short- and long-term impacts. 




of

Oil Markets Provide a Glimpse of the Post-Pandemic Future

Henry Kissinger warns that many existing domestic and international institutions that have helped govern the past decades will not survive the Covid-19 crisis. He is surely correct.




of

An Abysmal Failure of Leadership

During times of crisis, the most effective leaders are those who can build solidarity by educating the public about its own interests. Sadly, in the case of COVID-19, the leaders of the world's two largest economies have gone in the opposite direction, all but ensuring that the crisis will deepen.




of

Getting Smart on Pandemics: Intelligence in the Wake of COVID-19

This episode of Horns of a Dilemma touches on whether the failure to properly anticipate and warn about the novel coronavirus constitutes an intelligence failure, what changes might be required in the intelligence community in the wake of the pandemic, and what type of investigation or inquiry might be appropriate in order to learn lessons and incorporate changes for both the intelligence community and the whole of government moving forward.




of

Bruce Schneier on Cybersecurity in the Age of Coronavirus

Is Zoom secure? What about your home computer? Cyber expert Bruce Schneier says that we all need to be aware of the things cyber criminals thrive on during the confusion caused by coronavirus.




of

The Global Pandemic Has Spawned New Forms of Activism — and They're Flourishing

The authors have identified nearly 100 distinct methods of nonviolent action that include physical, virtual and hybrid actions.




of

An Abysmal Failure of Leadership

During times of crisis, the most effective leaders are those who can build solidarity by educating the public about its own interests. Sadly, in the case of COVID-19, the leaders of the world's two largest economies have gone in the opposite direction, all but ensuring that the crisis will deepen.




of

The Value of Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Sequestration

Growing concern around climate change has ignited recent interest in carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies and generated a series of studies on its global market potential.