The rising level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere means that crops are becoming less nutritious, and that change could lead to higher rates of malnutrition that predispose people to various diseases.

That conclusion comes from an analysis published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Medicine, which also examined how the risk could be alleviated. In the end, cutting emissions, and not public health initiatives, may be the best response, according to the paper's authors, which includes Stanford Health Policy's Eran Bendavid and Sanjay Basu.

Research has already shown that crops like wheat and rice produce lower levels of essential nutrients when exposed to higher levels of carbon dioxide, thanks to experiments that artificially increased CO2 concentrations in agricultural fields. While plants grew bigger, they also had lower concentrations of minerals like iron and zinc.

Read the story at NPR

On May 24, Shorenstein APARC hosted the final three research presentations by this year’s Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellows. What had been months in preparation was at last over; any indications of nervousness or anxiety now gave way to jubilant smiles and celebratory thumbs-ups for cameras. The journey that began for many nearly a year ago had come to a successful end.

Established in 1982, the Corporate Affiliates Program introduces personnel of Asian organizations that have become APARC corporate affiliates to American life and institutions. Over the span of a year, Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellows have the opportunity to immerse in daily interaction with specialists, students, and scholars from Stanford and abroad. In turn, the practical experience and international perspectives that Visiting Fellows bring with them enrich and inform intellectual exchange at both Shorenstein APARC and Stanford at large. 

The 2017-2018 Visiting Fellows came to APARC from 14 different organizations including government agencies, state-owned enterprises, and private sector industry corporations from four countries: China, India, Japan, and Korea.

Academic Engagement

The Corporate Affiliates Program is ideal for mid-career professionals looking to expand their knowledge and international experience. Visiting Fellows participate in a structured, yet individualized year of academic exploration. Elements of the program include creating individual research projects, auditing classes, attending exclusive seminars, and visiting local companies and institutions.

Following summer intensives and orientation, Visiting Fellows embark on their nine-month research projects under the guidance of an APARC faculty advisor. Fellows are matched with an advisor based on the research project subject and/or their professional background and region of employment.

“The best thing about this program is that I have one entire year to focus and to manage my own time,” observed a previous Visiting Fellow.

The months of thorough research culminate in a paper and its public presentation. Fellows present their research findings before an audience of APARC faculty and researchers, Stanford community members, and their “fellow Fellows.” Over the course of five days in May, audiences heard presentations on a wide variety of subjects ranging from the impact of U.S. Supreme Court decisions on the AI Industry to regulatory requirements for bio-similar products, and from the role of large industries in Urban Air Transport to the benefits of shifting a government’s focus from economic growth to people’s happiness.

Presentations were well received by APARC faculty, though not before standing up to the rigorous follow-up questions from a highly engaged audience.

University Enrichment

For Corporate Affiliates, the year was not exclusively about their research. Fellows found ample opportunities to take advantage of non-academic pursuits, both on-campus and in the greater Bay Area.

One way to further encourage exploration was a team-based activity designed by the program. Fellows were broken up into groups of five, each tasked with coordinating an excursion to take the rest on. Facilitated trips included a hike to Stanford’s famous radio telescope (“the Dish”), an exploration of the Berkeley neighborhood and its local industries, and a visit to NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field.

In addition to their professional experiences, Fellows also enriched the Center and university community through their personal pursuits. Takahito Inoshita, for example, brought his musical talent to Stanford along with an extensive experience in engineering. While researching how cities could identify policy needs via natural language data, he also performed with the Stanford Jazz Orchestra as lead trombonist at a November performance at Stanford’s Bing Concert Hall.

Next year’s Visiting Fellows are scheduled to begin arriving in mid-June, and include personnel from government, SOEs and private industries, but also the military and non-profit sector as well. For now, however, the Center is still saying goodbye to the 2017-2018 Fellows as they leave to join a distinguished, ever-growing alumni network of government and private sector professionals throughout Asia.

Stanford scientists found that the global economy is likely to benefit from ambitious global warming limits agreed to in the United Nations Paris Agreement.

Failing to meet climate mitigation goals laid out in the U.N. Paris Agreement could cost the global economy tens of trillions of dollars over the next century, according to new Stanford research. The study, published in Nature, is one of the first to quantify the economic benefits of limiting global warming to levels set in the accord.

The agreement commits 195 countries to the goal of holding this century’s average temperature to 2 degrees Celsius above levels in the pre-industrial era. It also includes an aspirational goal of pursuing an even more stringent target of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees. To date, the economic benefits of achieving these temperature targets have not been well understood.

 “Over the past century we have already experienced a 1-degree increase in global temperature, so achieving the ambitious targets laid out in the Paris Agreement will not be easy or cheap. We need a clear understanding of how much economic benefit we’re going to get from meeting these different targets,” said Marshall Burke, assistant professor of Earth system science in the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciencesand lead author of the study.

To develop this understanding, a team of Stanford researchers studied how economic performance over the past half-century correlated with changes in temperature around the world. Then, using climate model projections of how temperatures could change in the future, they calculated how overall economic output is likely to change as temperatures warm to different levels.

The researchers found a large majority of countries – containing close to 90 percent of the world’s population – benefit economically from limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees instead of 2 degrees. This includes the United States, China and Japan – the three largest economies in the world. It is also true in some of the world’s poorest regions, where even small reductions in future warming generate a notable increase in per capita gross domestic product.

“The countries likely to benefit the most are already relatively hot today,” said Burke. “The historical record tells us that additional warming will be very harmful to these countries’ economies, and so even small reductions in future warming could have large benefits for most countries.”

The projected costs from higher temperatures come from factors such as increases in spending to deal with extreme events, lower agricultural productivity and worse health, the scientists said.

Previous research has shown that the actual climate commitments each country has made as part of the Paris Agreement add up to close to 3 degrees of global warming, instead of the 1.5–2 degrees warming goals.

Given this discrepancy, the researchers also calculated the economic consequences of countries meeting their individual Paris commitments, but failing to meet the overall global warming goals of 1.5–2 degrees. They found that failing to achieve the 1.5–2 degrees goals is likely to substantially reduce global economic growth.

Percentage gain in GDP per capita in 2100 from achieving 1.5 degrees Celsius global warming instead of 2 degrees.

Percentage gain in GDP per capita in 2100 from achieving 1.5 degrees Celsius global warming instead of 2 degrees. (Image credit: Marshall Burke)

“It is clear from our analysis that achieving the more ambitious Paris goals is highly likely to benefit most countries – and the global economy overall – by avoiding more severe economic damages,” said Noah Diffenbaugh, professor of Earth system science and paper co-author.

The authors note the study may underestimate the total costs of higher levels of global warming. That’s especially true if catastrophic changes such as rapid melting of the ice on Greenland or Antarctica come to pass, or if extreme weather events such as heatwaves and floods intensify well beyond the range seen in historical observations. A recent studyby Diffenbaugh and his colleagues showed that even with reduced levels of global warming, unprecedented extreme events are likely to become more prevalent.

The new research helps shed light on the overall economic value of the Paris Agreement, as well as on the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the accord because of concerns that it is too costly to the U.S. economy. The researchers calculated that the overall global benefits of keeping future temperature increases to 1.5 degrees are likely in the tens of trillions of dollars, with substantial likely benefits in the U.S. as well. They note that these benefits are more than 30 times greater than the most recent estimates of what it will cost to achieve the more ambitious 1.5 degrees goal.

“For most countries in the world, including the U.S., we find strong evidence that the benefits of achieving the ambitious Paris targets are likely to vastly outweigh the costs,” said Burke.

Burke is also a fellow at the Center on Food Security and the Environment, the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environmentand the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Diffenbaugh is also the Kara J Foundation Professor, the Kimmelman Family Senior Fellow in the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and an affiliate of the Precourt Institute for Energy. Additional co-authors include W. Matt Davis, a former researcher at the Center on Food Security and the Environment. The research was supported by the Erol Foundation.

Media Contacts

Marshall Burke, School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences: mburke@stanford.edu, (650) 721-2203
Noah Diffenbaugh, School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences: diffenbaugh@stanford.edu, (650) 223-9425
Michelle Horton, Center on Food Security and the Environment: mjhorton@stanford.edu, (650) 498-4129

"Scholars and pundits in the West have become increasingly alarmed that China’s planned Belt and Road Initiative (B&R) could further shift the global strategic landscape in Beijing’s favor, with infrastructure lending as its primary lever for global influence. The planned network of an infrastructure project—financed by China’s bilateral lenders, the China Development Bank (CDB) and the Export-Import Bank of China (CEXIM), along with the newly formed and multilateral Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank—is historically unprecedented in scope. But the B&R is only the natural progression of a global sea change in developing economy infrastructure finance that has already been underway for more than two decades." Read the whole article by Bushra Bataineh, Michael Bennon, and Francis Fukuyama here. 

On May 4, 2018, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) President Jin Liqun delivered a talk titled “The AIIB After Two Years” to a Stanford audience of faculty, students, and community members. The event was sponsored by the China Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.

President Jin addressed the challenges of establishing the AIIB and shed light on the organization’s future goals. Following prepared remarks, President Jin conversed with moderator Thomas Fingar, before opening the floor to questions from the audience.

A recording of the event is now available online .

Read a full account of the event in The Stanford Daily News.

Read a transcript of President Jin's speech is available below.

As a senior policy advisor on the Middle East at the Pentagon and the White House, Colin Kahl has witnessed struggles in the region first-hand. From working to shape the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State and the long-term partnership with Iraq to limiting Iran’s nuclear activities to helping craft the U.S. response to the Arab Spring, Kahl knows better than most how important it is to understand this rapidly changing region.

Now that he has joined the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) as its inaugural Steven C. Házy Senior Fellow, Kahl wants to improve understanding of how developments in the Middle East impact people in the region and security around the globe.

The launch of FSI’s Middle East Initiative provides a first step toward this objective. As the initiative’s first director, Kahl plans to create “connective tissue” for efforts already underway across Stanford.

“There are a number of disparate efforts around campus working on Middle East issues,” said Kahl. “There is a lot of terrific research and engagement going on. My hope is that the Middle East Initiative will serve as a focal point to expose the Stanford community to ongoing work and foster new conversations that are not happening now.”

Many of the Middle East activities already occurring on campus happen at FSI, making it a natural home for the initiative.

“Our scholars are already studying the dynamics of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, prospects for reform and democracy in the Arab world, ways to counter terrorist activities and promoting economic development,” said FSI Director Michael McFaul. “Stanford students want to dive more deeply into the region’s political, social, economic and technological development. We want to give them that opportunity.”

In the 2018-2019 academic year, FSI’s Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy plans to begin filling this need by adding a three-course sequence on the Middle East.

Kahl also plans to bring more Middle East scholars from outside Stanford to share their ideas and research.

“I look forward to helping Stanford students and scholars connect and collaborate in ways that enrich our understanding of this vital region,” said Kahl. “Stanford has much to contribute to some of the most pressing policy challenges we face.”