Chris Nielsen

Chris Nielsen is the executive director of the Harvard China Project, of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Working with faculty from across schools of Harvard and at collaborating Chinese universities, he has led the development of and managed the interdisciplinary China Project from its inception under the Harvard University Center for Environment. He has a B.A. in Geology from the Colorado College, where he was a Boettcher Scholar, and an S.M. in technology and policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Working with economists, atmospheric chemists, environmental engineers, and health scientists at Harvard and Tsinghua Universities, Nielsen is co-managing a new major initiative. This aims to further link major research capacities of the China Project, now bringing the national economy-engineering-health framework of Clearing the Air together with the Project’s atmospheric chemistry and transport model of China and detailed emission inventories developed originally at Tsinghua. This comprehensive research framework is designed for evaluation of the full health and economic benefits and costs of nearly any national strategy to limit Chinese emissions of greenhouse gases and local pollutants. It is currently being applied to two policies: an economy-wide carbon tax and the ongoing sulfur control measures of the 11th Five Year Plan. The team is also preparing to incorporate an updated version of its regional power sector model, and eventually its more recent wind power research capabilities.

Additional Information:

• Chris Nielsen’s homepage

Publications:

• Clearing the Air: Health and Economic Damages of Air Pollution
• Potential for Wind-Generated Electricity in China