Is Net-Zero a Possible Solution to the Climate Problem?

Posted on Monday October 30 2023

, MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, October, 2023.

Historically, the objective of climate policy has been to maintain the global average temperature increase under a specified level. Increasingly, countries and organizations today express the objective as a specific target date for reaching Net-zero emissions. Over ninety countries, including China and India, responsible for 80% of global greenhouse emissions have set Net-zero emission targets; the United States and the European Union have pledged to reach a Net-zero economy by 2050. This commentary explains why achieving global Net-zero is highly unlikely by any certain date and, even if achieved, will not necessarily solve the climate problem.

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Articles

3 Articles by John Lee

Posted on Tuesday September 3

“Success in the Struggle against the People’s Republic of China,” by Dr. John Lee and Dr. Lavina Lee, Hudson Institute, June 2023. In April 2023, the Australian government released the officially commissioned but independently produced Defence Strategic  Review. Intended to assist the government of Australia with its strategic and defense policies over the next decade […]

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3 Articles by Steven Koonin

Posted on Tuesday August 6

“The ‘Climate Crisis’ Fades Out,” by Steven E. Koonin, Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2023. The 2015 Paris Agreement aspired to “reduce the risks and impacts of climate change” by eliminating greenhouse-gas emissions in the latter half of this century. The centerpiece of the strategy was a global transition to low-emission energy systems. After nearly […]

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5 Articles from Elizabeth Cameron

Posted on Tuesday July 23

“National Security Memorandum on United States Global Leadership to Strengthen the International COVID-⁠19 Response and to Advance Global Health Security and Biological Preparedness,” by US White House, National Security Memorandum, January 21, 2021. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is a grave reminder that biological threats, whether naturally occurring, accidental, or deliberate, can have significant and […]

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3 Articles from Ambassador Lawrence Butler

Posted on Friday June 28

“NATO Ready for Battle, but Lacks Stamina, Report Finds,” by Laura Heckman, National Defense, June 11, 2024. Since NATO’s adoption of a “back to the future” strategy at its Madrid Summit two years ago on the heels of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, the alliance has made significant strides toward forward defense and deterrence, and […]

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3 Articles by Jack Goldsmith

Posted on Tuesday June 4

“The Middle East and the President’s Sweeping Power Over Self-Defense,” by Jack Goldsmith, Lawfare, October 23, 2023. The Middle East may be on the verge of large-scale war, and the U.S. military is literally on the firing line. Late last week, the USS Carney intercepted and destroyed three missiles and several drones fired from Yemen even though […]

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Robert Einhorn on Nuclear Proliferation

Posted on Monday May 13

“A way forward on a US-Saudi civil nuclear agreement,” by Robert Einhorn, Brookings Institution, April 12, 2024. The Biden administration has responded positively to Saudi Arabia’s interest in civil nuclear cooperation with the United States—both because such cooperation is a Saudi condition for the normalization of Saudi-Israeli relations, which the administration strongly supports, and because […]

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Sea Change: Nordic-Baltic Security in a New Era

Posted on Friday March 22

By Edward Lucas, Catherine Sendak, Charlotta Collén, Jan Kallberg and Krista Viksnins, Center for European Policy Analysis, September 28, 2023. For the countries around the Baltic Sea, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine both highlighted a problem and created a potential solution to it. The Kremlin’s unambiguous demonstration of aggressive intent and capability underlined the risks of dismantling […]

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The Inescapable Two-State Imperative

Posted on Saturday March 2

By Jake Walles, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 19, 2021. The arrival of a new U.S. administration offers a welcome opportunity for a reset of U.S. policy vis-á-vis the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Donald Trump’s administration followed an approach that diverged sharply from those of its predecessors, but its so-called new thinking achieved little and unnecessarily alienated […]

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Two Essays by Ron Lehman

Posted on Saturday December 30

Lehman, Ron. “Sputnik-like Events: Responding to Technological Surprise.” In Strategic Latency: Red, White, and Blue — Managing the National and International Security Consequences of Disruptive Technologies edited by Zachary S. Davis and Michael Nacht, pp 33-51. Center for Global Security Research, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 2016. National security costs imposed by technological surprise can be […]

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Symposium: Advancing Cyber Diplomacy

Posted on Wednesday December 6

Council on Foreign Relations, March 2023. This symposium convenes senior government officials and experts from academia and the private sector to address the U.S. Department of State’s newly created Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy, the goals of American cyber diplomacy, and how major public and private international stakeholders can advance global cyber cooperation amidst […]

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Is Net-Zero a Possible Solution to the Climate Problem?

Posted on Monday October 30

By John M. Deutch, MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, October, 2023. Historically, the objective of climate policy has been to maintain the global average temperature increase under a specified level. Increasingly, countries and organizations today express the objective as a specific target date for reaching Net-zero emissions. Over ninety countries, including China […]

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Yes, the government keeps way too many secrets

Posted on Thursday September 28

By Zachary B. Wolf, CNN, September 3, 2022. We don’t yet know what classified documents and information former President Donald Trump took with him to Mar-a-Lago. But all of this talk about the secrets the government keeps from its citizens gets to a gripe of mine as a journalist: The US government often misapplies classification […]

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The Evolution of Authoritarian Digital Influence: Grappling with the New Normal

Posted on Tuesday August 29

By Shanthi Kalathil, PRISM, October 21, 2020 As the world contends with the wide-ranging ramifications of the global COVID-19 pandemic, it has been simultaneously beset by the global information crisis, which mimics the shape of the pandemic itself in its viral effects across huge segments of the global population. Misinformation—unwittingly spread false information—is rampant. Overarching […]

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Ambassador Charles Ray: Three articles on Why Africa Matters

Posted on Monday July 10

Our August 2023 speaker, Ambassador Charles Ray, thought the following articles would provide a helpful background for his presentation on Why Africa Matters. “Does Africa Matter to the United States?” by Charles A. Ray, Foreign Policy Research Institute, January 11, 2021. Most Americans generally have one of two images of Africa: a primitive home of famine, […]

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‘It’s good to think strategically’: Thomas E Ricks on civil rights and January 6

Posted on Saturday July 1

 By Martin Pengelly, The Guardian, October 8, 2022. “There is a direct connection from Freedom Summer to the January 6 committee,” says Thomas E Ricks as he discusses his new book, Waging a Good War: A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968. Freedom Summer was a 1964 campaign to draw attention to violence […]

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