Environment and Energy
How can governments create environmentally sustainable energy policies that are feasible technologically and politically? How can policymakers best navigate the tensions between science and politics?
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Interview with Former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos
On November 13, 2023, HKS Student Policy Review Senior Editor Jane Petersen spoke with former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos. The conversation covered a range of topics including what other countries can learn from Colombia’s peace agreement, poverty alleviation efforts, and the fight against climate change.Explore all Articles
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Between a rock and a hard place: The energy transition in Mexico as a consumer
06.16.23
In 2022, Naturgy — Mexico City’s natural gas monopoly — left me without service for three weeks. Working in the renewable energy sector, I knew what to do: end the gas contract and get both an electric stove and a water heater. That is the recipe I share in any energy transition report: “electrify” to […]
How the Climate Crisis Compounds Risks for Incarcerated Workers
10.26.22
A version of this article was originally published in August 2021 on Climate XChange’s “Intersection” blog. PPR thanks Climate XChange for their permission to reprint it here. The summer of 2021 was marked by a series of climate-fueled disasters: heat waves with disastrous consequences, dramatic rainfall and intense thunderstorms, an earlier and potentially more destructive […]
Why climate action is critical to the future of unemployed youth in South Africa
09.29.22
Cover photo source: @JamesGranelli_ on Twitter Twenty-five years ago, a group of South African high schoolers from an under-resourced township school rallied and made their way around the globe to participate in a youth environmental summit hosted in the US. What was unusual was the rhetoric around it. “Why is a group of colored youth […]
Woke on Coke: Young Cocaine Consumers Fuel Social and Environmental Devastation in Colombia
08.2.22
I could feel the bass of the music thumping in my thoracic cavity. The soles of my shoes were sticky with the beer that had spilled on the floor when I saw Eva inhaling a line of white powder off the kitchen countertop.
Busting the Cycle: Forming Clean Energy Markets in Oil-Dependent States
06.20.22
Calls for a green industrial revolution and transition away from greenhouse gas (GHG) emitting forms of energy are anything but novel. The newest to make the call is the International Energy Agency (IEA), which calls in a 2021 report for immediately halting oil and gas development and achieving net-zero emissions from electricity generation by 2040.1 […]
The infrastructure gap in Latin America and the Caribbean to reach the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030
06.19.22
If LAC wants to close its infrastructure gap and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, the region will need to significantly increase investment in infrastructure. The pre-pandemic annual investment level of 1.4% of GDP compares poorly with the 3.1% needed to close the gap. Finding innovative policies to finance them would ensure that […]
Gold mining in Southern Venezuela: Witnessing an Ecocide
06.12.22
In 2016, Venezuela’s leader Nicolás Maduro designated an area larger than the size of Portugal as a “strategic development zone” to facilitate the mining of gold and other minerals. The area, called “The Orinoco Mining Arc,” includes some of the most pristine areas of the Amazon and borders Canaima National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage […]
DIASPORIC ANTI-RACISM
05.2.22
African history did not begin and end with the Transatlantic Slave Trade. It began with the birth and advancement of human civilization. Ancient Africans weren’t barbaric and uncultured, but the progenitors of modern humanity. From the world’s oldest universities and empires to the shapers of society, Africa was the foundation of humanity. Across the world, […]
The Streets Speak in Tongues
04.22.22
I comb through the accent of my adolescent street views and patterns. Deciphering the moral compass that orients its existence. In morse code street peddlers dot, dit, and dash cash flows Bringing movement to our traffic jammed economy. This is a revolt against our arrested feats. Pinned down political beats, whose sub frequencies have yet […]
READ NOW: FIRST EDITION ANTI-RACISM POLICY JOURNAL SPRING 2022
03.30.22
Download the journal by clicking the download button on the PDF viewer toolbar. Special Note: The cover of this journal was create by the wonderful and talented Emma Sprague. You exceeded our wildest expectations and we cannot thank you enough.
Watch: #APJFiresideChat with Rt. Honourable Dr. Saulos Klaus Chilima, VP, Republic of Malawi
03.10.22
In this Africa Policy Journal Fireside Chat, Public Policy and African Studies Lecturer, Prof. Zoe Marks of the Harvard Kennedy School, explores the role of agriculture, technology, and entrepreneurship in harnessing the potential of Africa’s young people, in conversation with Right Honourable Dr. Saulos Chilima, Vice President of the Republic of Malawi. Dr. Chilima has […]
How to Save the Planet: Stop Economic Growth
11.19.21
After decades of inaction, humanity faces potential extinction through an ecological collapse of its own making.1 Climate change, ocean acidification, mass extinction, soil depletion, acid rain, rising seas, extreme weather, unstoppable wildfires, pollution, deforestation, and desertification would each be immense challenges for global governance individually—thecombination seems insurmountable, but because all share an underlying cause, there […]