ENVIRONMENT & ENERGY

Pushing toward a clean energy future

To avoid catastrophic consequences, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says global greenhouse gas emissions must peak by next year and decline 43% by 2030. That’s a tall order—one which will require phasing out fossil fuels in favor of carbon-free energy sources like wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal. While there has been recent good news in some areas, major challenges persist. Across the Kennedy School, faculty, researchers, staff, and students are collaborating with others at Harvard and around the world to understand the challenges and, hopefully, overcome them while there is still time, says Harvard Vice Provost Jim Stock, director of the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University. “We have to get to net zero,” Stock says in the latest issue of HKS Magazine. “So we’re going to get there.”

PUBLIC FINANCE

Billions in waste, trillions in debt: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the military’s "ghost budget"

The United States paid for all its conflicts up to the Vietnam War with a combination of tax increases and non-military spending cuts. That all changed with the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. On the latest episode of HKS PolicyCast, public finance expert and HKS Senior Lecturer Linda Bilmes says the United States spent more than $5 trillion on Iraq and Afghanistan using an unaccountable and unprecedented system involving borrowing, accounting schemes, and outsourcing, a process she has dubbed the “ghost budget.” The ghost budget, she says, kept war costs mostly out of the public debate and resulted in trillions being spent with minimal oversight. It also allowed corporations and wealthy investors to rake in huge profits and—combined with the Bush and Trump tax cuts—shifted the burden of the costs from the wealthy and onto middle- and lower-income people and future generations. Bilmes explains what happened and offers policy solutions to help ensure it doesn’t happen again.

GLOBALIZATION

How a “light” model of global economic governance might ease U.S.-China tensions

When it comes to global economic governance, less can be more if you want increased cooperation, stability, and equitable growth, says Harvard Kennedy School Professor Dani Rodrik. In a new paper in the Journal of Government and Economics titled "How to smooth U.S.-China economic relations for the benefit of the global economy: A light model of global economic governance," Rodrik argues for an approach that emphasizes transparency and pares down trade rules to those that are truly necessary. In a new Q&A, Rodrik says experience with globalization has shown that heavy-handed, one-size-fits-all global economic governance puts developing countries at a disadvantage and empowers nativist, populist politicians in regions that suffered job losses due to globalization.

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