Geoengineering for climate change

DANIEL BODANSKY of the Arizona State University states that geoengineering, a concept encompassing a variety of approaches to counteract the effects of greenhouse gas emissions, covering Solar radiation management (limiting sunlight reaching the earth, through such diverse techniques such as cloud whitening, stratospheric aerosol injection or space-based mirrors) and Carbon dioxide removal  (through enhanced weathering of rocks, mechanical trees, ocean fertilization) could increasingly become more salient if efforts to negotiate a new international agreement take too long to succeed. He states that unless the Kyoto Protocol could either be dramatically increased in scope or replaced by a new, more comprehensive agreement, global emissions will continue to rise and based on the current emissions trajectories, CO2 emissions could triple or quadruple by end of the century rather than double as has been currently estimated, potentially resulting in far more disastrous, non-linear effects of climate change.
In his discussion paper for the Harvard project on climate agreements, "Governing Climate Engineering: Scenarios for Analysis", he states that this has resulted in increasing interest in geoengineering solutions to address climate change and explores the various options currently available as well as costs and benefits of each approach. He highlights the lack of an international governance framework covering geoengineering activities including tasks such as developing norms to guide scientific research, allocating jurisdiction among states to regulate individuals, elaborating rules that constrain state behavior, and establishing procedures to limit conflict among states and predicts that governance of geoengineering was more likely to develop through the extension of existing treaty regimes to cover various types of geoengineering than through the development of a single comprehensive regime.

Cyber Power

JOSEPH NYE of the Harvard University avers that the low price of entry, anonymity and asymmetries in vulnerability meant that smaller actors had greater capacity to exercise hard and soft power in a highly volatile environment such as cyberspace than in more traditional domains of world politics and could create power shifts among states such that small states could leverage asymmetrical warfare to leapfrog larger adversaries. In an essay for the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, "Cyber Power", he concludes that cyber-power was unlikely to be a game-changer and that while governments would continue to be the strongest actors, the cyber-domain would increase the diffusion of power to non-state actors illustrating the importance of networks as a key dimension of power in the 21st century.

Chinese soft power

JOSEPH NYE of the Harvard University and WANG JISI of the Peking University School of International Studies state that increasing references to soft power by Chinese leaders and academics reflected a sophisticated realist strategy to complement its rising hard power. In an article for the Harvard International Review,"Hard Decisions on Soft Power:Opportunities and Difficulties for Chinese Soft Power", they conclude that soft power was not a zero-sum game in the context of Sino-US relations and that if both became more attractive in each others’ eyes, the prospects of damaging conflicts would reduce significantly.

Reviving nuclear energy

MATTHEW BUNN and MARTIN MALIN of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University state that global nuclear capacity had to be tripled by 2050 to make a meaningful contribution to the mitigation of carbon emissions and that would entail an increase in the pace of addition of nuclear plants from 4 currently to 25 annually. In an article for Innovations, the MIT Press Quarterly, "Enabling a Nuclear Revival—And Managing Its Risks", they call for increased levels of international cooperation and stronger international institutions to achieve nuclear safety, security, nonproliferation, and waste management which were essential  enablers  for  large-scale  nuclear  energy  growth.