For the month of August, we’re highlighting episodes from the 2023-2024 season of Energy Policy Now. We’ll be back with new content, and a new season, on September the 10th.

Climatologist Michael Mann discusses his new book on Earth’s climate past, with insights into our climate future.

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(This episode was recorded on September 14, 2023)

Renowned Penn climatologist Michael Mann’s latest book, “Our Fragile Moment,” explores the history of climate change and the lessons it can provide into the trajectory of climate change today. The book is Mann’s response to the phenomenon of “climate doomism” which, Mann writes, misrepresents the paleoclimate record to promote climate inaction. In the book, Mann seeks to set the paleoclimate record straight, and discusses how human agency remains our greatest tool in preventing the worst impacts of climate change.

Michael Mann is Presidential Distinguished Professor in the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Earth and Environmental Science, and director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media. He is also a Faculty Fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy.

Related Content

The Net-Zero Governance Conveyor Belt https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/the-net-zero-governance-conveyor-belt/  

The Prospects for Pennsylvania as a RGGI Member https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/the-prospects-for-pennsylvania-as-a-rggi-member/  

Accelerating Climate Action https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/podcast/accelerating-climate-action/  

Energy Policy Now is produced by The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. For all things energy policy, visit kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu.

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For the month of August, we’re highlighting episodes from the 2023-2024 season of Energy Policy Now. We’ll be back with new content, and a new season, on September the 10th.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse discusses the prospects for bipartisan U.S. carbon border fee legislation, and the need to protect the Biden administration’s clean energy and climate achievements.

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(This episode was recorded on March 15, 2024, during Penn Energy Week)

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has a reputation as an advocate for strong climate policies in Congress. The Rhode Island Democrat gained national attention over a decade ago when he gave the first of more than 290 “Time to Wake Up” climate speeches to date on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Many of the speeches were delivered at times when the prospects were bleak for significant leadership from Washington on climate and clean energy issues.

Yet the past three years have been very different. Through the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and, most pointedly, the Inflation Reduction Act, Congress has made concrete steps to grow domestic clean energy and improve the nation’s climate resilience. Recently, Senator Whitehouse reintroduced a bill that would levy the first carbon border fee on goods imported to the U.S., and effectively reward American industry for its leadership in energy efficiency and emissions reductions.

On the podcast, Whitehouse discusses his plan for a carbon border adjustment. He also considers an upcoming election that will prove critical for continued progress, and that could jeopardize the full realization of recently passed energy and climate laws and the fate of the Biden administration’s related regulatory accomplishments.

Related Content

The Key to Electric Grid Reliability: Modernizing Governance https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/the-key-to-electric-grid-reliability-modernizing-governance/

Advancing the Social License for Carbon Management in Achieving Net-Zero GHG Emissions https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/advancing-the-social-license-for-carbon-management-in-achieving-net-zero-ghg-emissions/

Coordinated Policy and Targeted Investment for an Orderly and Reliable Energy Transition https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/coordinated-policy-and-targeted-investment-for-an-orderly-and-reliable-energy-transition/  

Energy Policy Now is produced by The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. For all things energy policy, visit kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu

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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse discusses the prospects for bipartisan U.S. carbon border fee legislation, and the need to protect the Biden administration’s clean energy and climate achievements.
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(This episode was recorded on March 15, 2024, during Penn Energy Week)

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has a reputation as an advocate for strong climate policies in Congress. The Rhode Island Democrat gained national attention over a decade ago when he gave the first of more than 290 “Time to Wake Up” climate speeches to date on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Many of the speeches were delivered at times when the prospects were bleak for significant leadership from Washington on climate and clean energy issues.

Yet the past three years have been very different. Through the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and, most pointedly, the Inflation Reduction Act, Congress has made concrete steps to grow domestic clean energy and improve the nation’s climate resilience. Recently, Senator Whitehouse reintroduced a bill that would levy the first carbon border fee on goods imported to the U.S., and effectively reward American industry for its leadership in energy efficiency and emissions reductions.

On the podcast, Whitehouse discusses his plan for a carbon border adjustment. He also considers an upcoming election that will prove critical for continued progress, and that could jeopardize the full realization of recently passed energy and climate laws and the fate of the Biden administration’s related regulatory accomplishments.

Related Content

The Key to Electric Grid Reliability: Modernizing Governance https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/the-key-to-electric-grid-reliability-modernizing-governance/

Advancing the Social License for Carbon Management in Achieving Net-Zero GHG Emissions https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/advancing-the-social-license-for-carbon-management-in-achieving-net-zero-ghg-emissions/

Coordinated Policy and Targeted Investment for an Orderly and Reliable Energy Transition https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/coordinated-policy-and-targeted-investment-for-an-orderly-and-reliable-energy-transition/

Energy Policy Now is produced by The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. For all things energy policy, visit kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu

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The social cost of carbon provides an estimate of the economic damage caused by carbon emissions. A climate economist tells how it's calculated.

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One of the most hotly debated issues in climate policy is the value of the social cost of carbon, which is an estimate of the damage that will come from releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The social cost of carbon is a useful measure to help us understand the price that should be placed on carbon today to limit carbon dioxide emissions, and minimize the climate-related damages that future generations will face.

Climate economist Gilbert Metcalf explains how the social cost of carbon is calculated, and looks at the factors that economists take into account in arriving at a value. He also discusses why the value of the social cost of carbon is so contentious, and why the cost estimates accepted by the Trump and Obama administrations diverge so widely.

Gilbert Metcalf is a professor of economics at Tufts University and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His work focuses on taxation, energy, and environmental economics.

Related Content

The Essential Role of Negative Emissions in Getting to Carbon Neutral https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/essential-role-negative-emissions-getting-carbon-neutral

Robust Carbon Markets: Rethinking Quantities and Prices in Carbon Pricing https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/robust-carbon-markets

Why Americans Want a Carbon Tax, But Won’t Support One at the Polls https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now/why-americans-want-carbon-tax-wont-support-one-polls

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Climate change, and policies to address it, will change where Americans live and work, and produce energy and food. Two environmental designers discuss an atlas of the country’s future.
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A year ago, Democratic members of Congress introduced a resolution to address climate change and economic inequality, with a plan that promises to fundamentally alter Americans’ relationship to their natural and built environments. That vision, the Green New Deal, recalls an earlier bold plan of action for the country at a time of crisis.

Nearly 90 years ago the original New Deal created vast public works projects to create jobs during the Great Depression. But its legacy transcends economic recovery. Public works projects realized the goal of universal electrification, built highways to speed future growth, and paved the way for migration to the suburbs and from old industrial centers to new. Along the way, the New Deal fundamentally altered the human map of the United States.

Today’s Green New Deal proposes to do something similar. If it comes to pass, it’s likely to change where many Americans live, and how they make their living.

Guests Alexandra Lillehei and Billy Fleming of the University of Pennsylvania’s Ian L. McHarg Center for Urbanism and Design talk about what a future map of America, shaped by climate change and a Green New Deal, might look like.
  
The two have been instrumental in a new initiative called The 2100 Project: An Atlas for the Green New Deal. Through maps, the project envisions changes in population distribution, energy production and agricultural activity over the course of this century.

Related Content 
De-Abstracting Climate Change https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2020/05/19/de-abstracting-climate-change

Balancing Renewable Energy Goals with Community Interests https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/balancing-renewable-energy-goals-community-interests 

Changing Tides: Public Attitudes on Climate Change and Climate Migration https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/changing-tides

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An economist looks at how economic worries, and political ideology, have made carbon taxes a tough sell.

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Economists generally agree that the most efficient way to reduce  carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming is by putting a price on carbon in the form of a carbon tax. Consumers, though, can tend see things differently. The idea of taxing the fuels that run our cars, and power our homes and jobs, has given Americans pause and, as a result, no carbon tax has been levied to date in the United States.

Nevertheless, calls for a carbon tax have become more frequent as concern over climate change has intensified. On Capitol Hill, there are half a dozen carbon fee proposals in circulation, with backing from liberals and conservatives. States have also explored carbon pricing, most notably the state of Washington, where two recent carbon tax ballot initiatives were defeated at the polls.

Ioana Marinescu, an economist at the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses the challenge of enacting a carbon tax. She also explores policymakers’ efforts to develop carbon tax legislation to appeal to the broad public, and what might be required for these efforts to ultimately succeed.

Ioana Marinescu is assistant professor of public policy with the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania.

Related Content

The COVID Carbon Crunch. https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2020/05/12/covid-carbon-crunch

Robust Carbon Markets: Rethinking Quantities and Prices Carbon Pricing  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/robust-carbon-markets

It’s Ideology, Stupid: Why Voters Still Shun Carbon Taxes https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/its-ideology-stupid

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More states are targeting 100% clean energy, but is the electric grid ready? An expert in energy policy and economics looks at the policy challenges to creating a robust, carbon-free electricity system.

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Across the U.S., a growing number of states have adopted ambitious clean energy goals that will require the bulk of their electricity to come from carbon-free sources by the middle of this century. Yet clean energy will place new demands on the electricity system, which will need to accommodate intermittent wind and solar power, and distributed energy from rooftop solar and electric vehicles. This is a tall order for a grid that was built around large, central power plants fueled by a predictable supply of fossil and nuclear fuel.

Judy Chang, an energy economist and engineer with the Brattle Group, explores the policy challenges to updating the electric grid to economically and reliably deliver clean energy. She looks at the cost of building a more flexible grid, and at the political opportunities, and hurdles to its development.

Judy Chang is an energy economist and engineer with the Brattle Group who has served as an expert witness before energy regulators in the United States and Canada. Her work focuses on renewable energy, transmission networks, and electricity market design.

Related Content

Feasibility of Seasonal Storage for a Fully Electrified Economy https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/feasibility-seasonal-storage-fully-electrified-economy

Energy Transition Challenges for the 2020s  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now/energy-transition-challenges-2020s

Preparing PGW for a low-carbon future. https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/preparing-pgw-low-carbon-future

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Political scientist Leah Stokes examines interest groups’ power to shape, and resist, progressive energy policy.
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Interest groups play a central role in American politics, and nowhere has their influence been felt more acutely than in the areas of energy and environmental politics. Leah Stokes, assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, discusses the outsized role of special interests in shaping debate around clean energy and in defining policies to address the environmental and climate impacts of our energy system.

In March, Stokes published her first book, Short Circuiting Policy: Interest Groups and the Battle Over Clean Energy and Climate Policy in the United States, the culmination of six years of research into special interest groups. Stokes shares her findings, including and strategies to overcome opposition to progressive energy policies, in conversation.

Related Content 

When Emissions Reductions Aren’t Sustainable. https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2020/04/15/when-emission-reductions-arent-sustainable

Energy Transitions Are Brown Before They Go Green  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/energy-transitions-are-brown-they-go-green 

Wind Developers Pressured by Pandemic Concerns and 2020 PTC Deadlines https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2020/04/09/wind-developers-pressured-pandemic-concerns-2020-ptc-deadlines

Changing Tides: Public Attitudes on Climate Change and Climate Migration  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/changing-tides

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The residential solar power industry faces the expiration of a key tax break and resistance to net-metering. But the addition of battery storage, and an emerging role in grid services, make solar a valuable tool for grid resiliency.
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Last year, solar power accounted for 40 percent of new electric generating capacity additions in the U.S. Yet the industry faces a number of challenges, including the ending of federal incentives for solar projects and an uncertain future for net metering, both of which have been instrumental in the industry’s growth. The coronavirus will also impact solar adoption as consumers and businesses focus their attention elsewhere.  

Anne Hoskins, head of federal and state policy at Sunrun, the nation’s largest residential solar power company, discusses the industry’s challenges and grounds for optimism, including solar power’s role in addressing the challenge of grid resiliency, particularly where emerging climate impacts are placing unprecedented demands on the electricity system.

Anne Hoskins is chief policy officer at Sunrun.

Related Content

Energy Transitions are Brown Before They Go Green https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/energy-transitions-are-brown-they-go-green

Wind Developers Pressured by Pandemic Concerns & 2020 PTC Deadlines https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2020/04/09/wind-developers-pressured-pandemic-concerns-2020-ptc-deadlines

The Path Forward for Grid Electricity Storage https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now/path-forward-grid-electricity-storage

One Year Later: Solar Energy in Philadelphia is Still on the Rise. https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2020/02/06/one-year-later-solar-energy-philadelphia-still-rise

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Energy projects bring economic opportunity, but host communities often suffer disproportionate health and environmental impacts. An expert in environmental regulation looks at community efforts to exert control over energy development.
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Communities across the United States are coming into conflict with their state governments over where and how energy projects may be built. The issue has drawn attention in energy-rich states like Texas, where a half decade ago the state government introduced a law that prevented towns from limiting fracking within their jurisdiction. Conversely, last year in Colorado cities and towns gained power to regulate local energy development after a number of previous efforts to assert local authority had failed.

The challenge isn’t confined to fossil fuels. On the renewable energy front, communities have opposed wind, solar and other projects that residents say could bring their own set of environmental problems.

Hannah Wiseman, Dean for Environmental Programs at the Florida State University College of Law, discusses energy development turf wars and the often conflicting priorities of states and the cities and towns within their borders. She also discusses strategies that may help strike a balance between local health and environmental concerns and the larger economic and climate benefits that the development of new energy projects can bring.

Hannah Wiseman is Professor and Associate Dean for Environmental Programs at the Florida State University College of Law. Her work focuses on the role that regulation plays in balancing energy development and environmental quality.

Related Content 
Energy Transitions Are Brown Before They Go Green.  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/energy-transitions-are-brown-they-go-green

A Preview of Key Energy Challenges for the 2020s
https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2020/03/06/preview-key-energy-challenges-2020s

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Nobel Laureate Daniel Kammen, head of U.C. Berkeley’s Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory, discusses efforts to build clean energy solutions that meet the social and developmental needs of the communities they serve.

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Discussions around today’s clean energy transition tend to focus on technological challenges, and the costs and climate benefits of renewable energy. Yet the social and cultural implications of a transition to clean energy are often overlooked.

Nobel Prize laureate Daniel Kammen talks about his research into the ways that the adoption of clean energy may impact society and, by extension, guide political discourse. He also discusses how taking into account social, economic and developmental realities could accelerate the move away from fossil fuels, and speed electrification in some of the poorest regions of the globe.

Daniel Kammen is Distinguished Professor of Energy in the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also Director of Berkeley’s Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory, and a former Science Envoy for the U.S. State Department. 

 Related Content

Mongolian Energy Futures: Challenges of Radical Energy Sector Decarbonization  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/mongolian-energy-futures-repowering-ulaanbaatar 

Robust Carbon Markets: Rethinking Quantities and Prices in Carbon Pricing  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/robust-carbon-markets 

Energy Transition Challenges for the 2020s  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now/energy-transition-challenges-2020s 

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The author of the first text book on carbon capture looks at the potential for negative emissions technologies to limit global warming, and discusses the challenge to scaling solutions for positive climate impact.
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Negative emissions technologies are a key part of the strategy to keep global warming within the 2 degree Celsius limit set out in the Paris Climate Agreement. In fact, its projected that we’ll need to remove dramatic quantities of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year to keep within the Paris goal. Yet today negative emissions hardly exists in any practical sense, and major barriers to growth lie ahead in the form of high costs, environmental impacts and political support.

Jennifer Wilcox, professor of Chemical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and author of the very first text book on carbon capture, talks about the challenge of scaling negative emissions technologies to the point at which they can meaningfully limit carbon dioxide concentrations in Earth’s atmosphere. Along the way, she looks at how the challenge of scaling negative emissions recalls early barriers to growing the wind and solar industries, and at recent efforts to speed the deployment of negative emissions technologies including direct air capture.

Jennifer Wilcox is professor of Chemical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. She is a member of committees at the National Academies of Sciences and the American Physical Society charged with assessing carbon capture methods, their costs, and their climate impacts.

Related Content 
Exploring a Tool to Curb Climate Change: Direct Air Capture https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2020/02/19/exploring-tool-curb-climate-change-direct-air-capture 

What’s Behind Poland’s Opposition to EU Climate Neutrality Agreement https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2019/12/13/whats-behind-polands-opposition-eu-climate-neutrality-agreement 

Robust Carbon Markets: Rethinking Quantities and Prices in Carbon Pricing https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/robust-carbon-markets

Preparing PGW for a Low-Carbon Future https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/preparing-pgw-low-carbon-future

Betting on Climate Solutions https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/betting-climate-solutions

A Hard Look at Negative Emissions (Podcast) https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now/hard-look-negative-emissions

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What key developments are likely to mark the energy industry in the decade of the 2020s? Two experts in energy politics and economics offer their views of the future.

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In looking back on history we often tend mark time by the decade. In the world of energy, the decade of 1970s is remembered as an era of oil crises and concern that the world’s energy supply was running out. More recently, the decade of the 2010s stands out for the emergence of shale oil and gas, and the growing adoption of renewables.

And now, as we embark upon a new decade, it’s time to consider what key developments in energy the 2020s might bring.

Two experts in the history of energy technology and politics offer their views on key energy trends that are likely to emerge in the decade ahead. The pair takes a particularly close look at how renewable energy might develop in the 2020s, and barriers to growth to watch out for.

Johannes Urpelainen is professor of Energy, Resources and Environment in the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Michael Aklin is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh. The two have launched a research program, the Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy, to promote sustainable energy in emerging economies.

Related Content

Robust Carbon Markets: Rethinking Quantities and Prices in Carbon Pricing https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/robust-carbon-markets

Whither the Regulatory War on Coal? Scapegoats, Saviors, and Stock Market Reactions https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/working-paper-whither-regulatory-war-coal

How the Democratic-Republican Climate Rift Became Political Reality https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now/how-democratic-republican-climate-rift-became-political-reality 

200 Years of Energy History in 30 Minutes https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now/200-years-energy-history-30-minutes

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The U.S. Department of the Treasury is finalizing rules that will determine which new clean hydrogen projects will receive the IRA’s generous 45V tax incentives, and whether those projects will deliver promised climate benefits.
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The Inflation Reduction Act provides a range of incentives for the development of clean energy resources in the United States. Highest profile among those incentives are hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits earmarked for new wind and solar power projects. Yet the IRA’s most aggressive incentives aren’t directed at renewables but at clean hydrogen, which is a fuel that is viewed as crucial to decarbonizing parts of the economy that aren’t readily electrified, such as steel making, air travel and shipping.

Over the past few months, the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service have been developing rules to define what will qualify as clean hydrogen, and what level of financial incentive hydrogen producers should receive based on the climate impact of the hydrogen they will make. Final rules are expected this year, and will ultimately determine whether clean hydrogen delivers on its climate promise.

Danny Cullenward, Vice Chair of California’s Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee and a Senior Fellow at the Kleinman Center, explores the climate stakes surrounding the Treasury’s 45V hydrogen production tax credit. Cullenward explains the draft clean hydrogen rules, and why certain interests would like to see those guidelines relaxed. He also explores what the final rules might mean for the pace of clean hydrogen growth, and for the ability of clean hydrogen producers to thrive after the incentives expire.

Danny Cullenward is a Senior Fellow with the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. He is also Vice Chair of California’s Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee, and a Research Fellow with the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy at American University.

Related Content

Coordinated Policy and Targeted Investment for an Orderly and Reliable Energy Transition https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/coordinated-policy-and-targeted-investment-for-an-orderly-and-reliable-energy-transition/

Why the IRA’s Carbon Capture Tax Credit Could Increase Greenhouse Emissions (Podcast) https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/podcast/why-the-iras-carbon-capture-tax-credit-could-increase-greenhouse-emissions/

Energy Policy Now is produced by The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. For all things energy policy, visit kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu.

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Last June the largest oil refinery on the East Coast of the United States blew up. In the disaster’s wake, can the city of Philadelphia and its residents transition to a cleaner, more financially sound future? 

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On June 21, 2019 the largest oil refinery on the East Coast exploded. The blast released thousands of pounds of toxic hydrogen fluoride gas into the surrounding Philadelphia air, and launched bus-sized debris across the neighboring Schuylkill River. Through sheer luck, the dissipating effect of winds on toxic gasses, and thanks to the clear headed emergency action of refinery operators, no one was seriously injured in the moments following the blast.

Yet many in this city point out that the refinery leaves behind a legacy of health impacts, including elevated asthma rates in the densely populated neighborhoods that surround the site. The refinery also leaves a vast patch of urban landscape that is so toxic that it’s doubtful that it can ever be used for residential development.

In the months following the explosion, the city, its residents, and business interests jockeyed over the site’s fate. Proposals were floated to repurpose the site as a logistics hub, return it to its natural state as a tidal marshland, and even to repair and reopen the damaged refinery itself. Yet, the decision on what to do with the site would ultimately be made within the walls of a Delaware bankruptcy court, where the priorities of the refinery’s creditors would take precedence.

On January 22 the waiting came to an end. The court announced that a Chicago-based real-estate company had agreed to purchase the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery for $240 million dollars. The buyer has not yet announced a detailed vision for the site, but has a history of redeveloping industrial locations for less-polluting uses. Yet the auction’s losing bidders aren’t looking to go quietly, and there may be more drama to come.

Dr. Mark Alan Hughes, director of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and former founding sustainability manager for the city of Philadelphia, talks about the sale of Philadelphia Energy Solutions and what the future may hold for the city of Philadelphia.

Related Content

Beyond Bankruptcy: The Outlook for Philadelphia’s Neighborhood Refinery https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/beyond-bankruptcy

This Energy Transition is Different. Here’s Why https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2019/12/05/energy-transition-different-heres-why

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2020 will be a crucial year for the Paris Agreement. An architect of the climate process considers the implications of the U.S. presidential election, and what might be accomplished in the months ahead. 

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In November of this year the 195 countries that are part of the Paris climate process will hold their annual summit in Glasgow, Scotland. At the talks, countries are expected to announce more aggressive greenhouse gas reduction targets in response to recent reports from the UN and others that highlight both the dangers of a warming climate, and the inadequacy of current efforts to keep warming to a minimum.

Yet concern is growing over whether the vital goals of the Glasgow conference can be met.  Recently, at the COP25 summit in Madrid in December, countries remained far apart on key rules to guide implementation of the Paris Agreement going forward. What’s more, 2020 could prove to be a year of climate limbo, as the world awaits the outcome of the U.S. presidential election that will likely determine whether the U.S. returns to the Paris process and resumes a leadership role.

Andrew Light, an architect of the U.S. involvement in the Paris Climate Agreement, talks about the current status of the Paris climate process, and what we might expect as 2020 unfolds. 

Andrew Light is a Distinguished Senior Fellow in the Global Climate Program at the World Resources Institute, and University Professor at George Mason University. He formerly served with the U.S. State Department, where he was a member of the senior strategy team for UN Climate Negotiations and U.S. participation in the Paris Accord.

Related Content

Changing Tides: Public Attitudes on Climate Change and Climate Migration. https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/changing-tides 

Robust Carbon Markets: Rethinking Quantities and Prices in Carbon Pricing. https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/robust-carbon-markets 

Rethinking Global Emissions Trading
https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now/rethinking-global-emissions-trading

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As climate-related disasters become more severe and frequent, insurers and governments face an economic black hole.
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The insurance industry specializes in understanding the nature of risk, and in estimating the likelihood, and cost, of future damages that can result.
 
A major challenge for the insurance industry is to understand how climate change alters the likelihood of future natural disasters, from floods to wildfires, and how to accurately reflect these risks in the premiums it charges to consumers and businesses.
 
Carolyn Kousky, executive director of the Wharton Risk Center, takes a look at insurers’ struggle to manage natural disasters of unprecedented scale, the challenge of communicating climate risk, and how climate risk is being felt in the energy industry.

Carolyn Kousky is executive director of the Wharton Risk Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work focuses on disaster insurance markets and policy responses to changes in extreme events arising from climate change.
 
Related Content
Changing Tides: Public Attitudes on Climate Change and Climate Migration https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/changing-tides
 
Does Attribution Science Give Climate Litigators a Smoking Gun? https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now/does-attribution-science-give-climate-litigators-smoking-gun

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The Power of Siberia gas pipeline brings Russia and China closer together, and reveals a new power dynamic between the two countries.
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In early December China received its first delivery of Russian natural gas through the Power of Siberia pipeline. The new pipeline crosses 1800 miles of Siberian wilderness from the Arctic to the Chinese border, and is vitally important to both countries. For Russia, the pipeline will be a source of much needed foreign revenue, and a counter to US and European economic sanctions that followed its annexation of Crimea in 2014. China, for its part, gains a new alternative to imports of liquefied natural gas, and improved energy security.

Beyond Power of Siberia’s energy and economic benefits, much has been made its political implications. The pipeline is the latest example of deepening ties between China and Russia at a time when both countries have been at odds with another key player in the global energy market, the United States.

Kleinman Center Senior Fellows Anna Mikulska and Bill Hederman take a look at what Power of Siberia may reveal about a shift in the global energy market, and the geopolitical influence of key players in that market.

Anna Mikulska is a senior fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and a nonresident fellow in energy studies at the Rice University’s Baker Institute. Bill Hederman is a senior fellow at the Kleinman Center, and a former senior advisor within the U.S. Department of Energy.

Related Content 

Nord Stream 2: Energy Security for Europe or Prelude to Russian Aggression in the Baltic? https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2019/09/04/nord-stream-2-energy-security-europe-or-prelude-russian-aggression-baltic

Saudi Aramco: A Big Bet on Oil https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2019/12/18/saudi-aramco-big-bet-big-oil 

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The airline industry has a plan to limit its carbon footprint. Will it deliver?
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The global air travel industry is growing rapidly, with the number of airline passengers projected to double in less than 20 years. Yet strong growth may not be entirely good news for the industry, which has come under scrutiny for its outsized carbon footprint in an age when concern over climate change is on the rise.

An expert on airline emissions looks at the uniquely difficult challenge airlines face in reducing greenhouse emissions even as ridership grows, and at whether an industry plan to hold emissions in check will in fact deliver. Guest Andrew Murphy, aviation manager at Brussels-based Transport and Environment, also explores the role air travel may play in helping or hindering countries in their efforts to fulfill national and international climate commitments, including those under the Paris Climate Accord.

Andrew Murphy is manager for aviation at Transport and Environment, an organization in Brussels, Belgium that works alongside industry and governments to reduce transportation emissions.

Related Content 
Climate Change and Financial Risks https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/climate-change-and-financial-risks

Bye-Bye Bus: Ride Hail in Philadelphia https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/bye-bye-bus

Rethinking Global Emissions Trading https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now/rethinking-global-emissions-trading

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The Environmental Defense Fund's chief economist discusses a plan that leverages international cooperation to achieve ambitious, and durable greenhouse emissions reductions under the Paris climate framework.

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The first global climate pact, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, created the foundation for global emissions trading by allowing developed countries to purchase carbon offsets from areas of the globe where the cost of reducing greenhouse emissions was lowest.  

Yet emissions trading under the Kyoto framework was far from perfect.

Too many projects failed to deliver carbon reductions beyond what would have happened anyway. And even where climate benefits were real, projects often weren’t built to last and deliver ongoing reductions on the scale needed to address the long-term challenge of climate change.

Suzi Kerr, chief economist at the Environmental Defense Fund, discusses a new framework for global emissions trading under the Paris Climate Accord, intended to incentivize ambitious and sustained emissions reductions. The plan, called Climate Teams, creates small groups of countries that are economically committed to each other and to creating financial and technological conditions needed to address climate change over the long term.

Suzi Kerr is chief economist with the Environmental Defense Fund in New York. Her work focuses on domestic and international climate change policy.

 Related Content

Betting on Climate Solutions https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/betting-climate-solutions

Why Carbon Pricing Falls Short, and What to Do About it https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/why-carbon-pricing-falls-short 

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Puerto Rico’s electric system was destroyed by Hurricane Maria in 2017. Will privatization of the island’s electric utility ensure reliable and affordable energy for the future? 

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In 2017 Hurricane Maria destroyed Puerto Rico’s electric grid, cutting off power to the island’s residents, some of whom remained without electricity for nearly a year. The island’s publicly owned power utility, PREPA, is now for sale, and it’s hoped that privatization will deliver an electric grid better prepared to endure future tropical storms, and to deliver power that Puerto Ricans can afford.

David Skeel, member of Puerto Rico’s congressionally mandated Financial Oversight and Management Board tasked with guiding the recovery of Puerto Rico’s bankrupt economy, talks about PREPA’s controversial privatization plan and the challenge of overcoming years of mismanagement and corruption that have dogged the utility.

David Skeel is the S. Samuel Arsht Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a member of Puerto Rico’s Financial Oversight and Management Board.

Related Content

Climate Change and Financial Risks https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/climate-change-and-financial-risks

Power Over the Twenty-First Century Electric Grid https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/power-over-twenty-first-century-electric-grid

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Cheryl LaFleur, former commissioner with the U.S.’ top electricity and gas market regulator, talks about the growing influence of partisan politics in energy regulation.

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Over the past decade the emergence of shale natural gas and concern over climate change have fundamentally changed the U.S. energy landscape, and the way in which Americans talk about energy. Cheryl LaFleur, until August a commissioner with the nation’s top electricity and natural gas market regulator, has been outspoken in her concern over the rise of partisanship in energy dialogue, and how political divides may impact regulation of the nation’s energy industry.

LaFleur served for a decade with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and as the commission’s chairman during both the Obama and Trump presidencies. She talks about the risk that party politics pose to the FERC’s mandate to be an impartial arbiter of the nation’s energy markets. She also looks at how growing climate concern may complicate the commission’s job of overseeing the sector, and at the widening rift between states and the federal government over key energy and environmental policy issues.

Cheryl LaFleur was a commissioner with the FERC from 2010 to August, 2019. On October 24, 2019, LaFleur received the Carnot Prize for distinguished contributions to energy policy from the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, the producer of Energy Policy Now.

Related Content

Working Paper: Whither the Regulatory ‘War on Coal’? https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/working-paper-whither-regulatory-war-coal

It’s Ideology, Stupid: Why Voters Still Shun Carbon Taxes https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/its-ideology-stupid

Florida Will Be the First State to Swing on Climate. https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2019/09/30/florida-will-be-first-state-swing-climate

How the Democratic-Republican Climate Rift Became Political Reality https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now/how-democratic-republican-climate-rift-became-political-reality

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Battery storage will play a central role in decarbonizing the nation’s electric grid, yet the rules by which batteries will compete in electricity markets have yet to be agreed upon.
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The cost of battery electric storage technology is falling rapidly, creating opportunity for batteries to play a growing role in the nation’s electricity system and in the reduction of the grid’s carbon footprint. Last year, the regulator of the nation’s electricity markets, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, acknowledged the growing potential of storage when it established guidelines for batteries to fully, and profitably, take part in the nation’s electricity markets.

A year later, however, a number of legal and regulatory challenges remain that could slow the growth of battery storage, and make it harder for the technology to achieve the economies of scale it will need to compete with traditional sources of electric power.

Kleinman Center Senior Fellow Ken Kulak takes a look at the role of regulation in defining the future of energy storage and its ability to serve as a complement to carbon free energy. He also previews the upcoming FERC meeting where the agency is expected to rule on U.S. electricity markets’ plans to open their doors to full participation of battery storage.

Ken Kulak is a partner at the law firm Morgan Lewis where he focuses on energy regulation and complex energy transactions. He is also a Senior Fellow here at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy.

Related Content 
Opportunities to Bridge the Funding Gap to Commercialize Cleantech Innovation https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2019/07/17/opportunities-bridge-funding-gap-commercialize-cleantech-innovation-insights-2019

Energy Storage in PJM https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/energy-storage-pjm

The Kleinman Center Explores Energy Storage https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2019/04/09/kleinman-center-explores-energy-storage

A Market for Primary Frequency Response?  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/market-primary-frequency-response

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The Trump Administration has blamed the decline in America’s coal industry on a regulatory “war on coal.” Yet investor reaction to regulatory announcements doesn’t support that view. 

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The U.S. coal industry has declined dramatically over the past decade, with output from the nation’s coal mines falling 35% from their peak. Today, coal-fired power plants generate just over a quarter of the nation’s electricity and have been surpassed by natural gas plants as the top source for electric power. 

A variety of narratives have been put forth to explain coal’s decline. None has been more politically charged than the “war on coal” narrative, advanced by the Trump Administration, that places blame on a set of Obama-era federal policies to reduce the environmental impact of coal.

Guests Cary Coglianese, director of the Penn Program on Regulation and Dan Walters, Assistant Professor of Law at Penn State University, discuss new research that takes a close look at the impact of federal environmental regulation on the coal industry.  The research focuses on the reaction of investors to major regulatory announcements, and the extent to which federal energy and environmental policies have colored investors’ view of the future viability of the coal industry.  

Coglianese and Walter's report, Whither the Regulatory War on Coal? Scapegoats, Saviors and Stock Market Reactions, is available on the website of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy.

Cary Coglianese is director of the Penn Program on Regulation at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Dan Walters is an Assistant Professor of Law at Penn State University whose work focuses on energy and environmental law. Previously Dan was a Regulation Fellow at the Penn Program on Regulation.

Related Content 

Betting on Climate Solutions: Why We Should Spread Our Chips https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/betting-climate-solutions

Teeming with Carbon Taxes https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2019/08/12/teeming-carbon-taxes

As Clean Energy Surpasses Coal, U.S. Energy Transition Locks Into Place https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2019/07/08/clean-energy-surpasses-coal-us-energy-transition-locks-place

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Physical attacks on critical European energy infrastructure have risen since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, threatening energy security and the pace of the low-carbon transition.

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Sabotage of critical energy infrastructure has been on the rise, most prominently in Europe, where multiple attacks have targeted subsea electric transmission cables and natural gas pipelines, including Nordstream, since the start of the war in Ukraine.   

These disruptions come at a time of upheaval in the energy system, as nations push forward with the construction of expansive carbon-free energy infrastructure, spanning renewable generation and electric transmission networks. Simultaneously, European countries have raced to develop new LNG import terminals and pipelines to replace natural gas that had been supplied by Russia. Yet, until recently relatively little public attention has been paid to the challenge that physical sabotage presents to energy security and climate goals.

Benjamin Schmitt, a senior fellow with the Kleinman Center, explores the daunting task of protecting vast networks of often remote infrastructure from everything from hostile nations to small bands of rogue actors. He also discusses why culprits can be so difficult to identify, and how threats to energy infrastructure might undermine public support for the expansive projects needed to transition to a low-carbon energy system in Europe, the US, and elsewhere.

Benjamin Schmitt is a Senior Fellow here at the Kleinman Center whose research has focused on the physical security on the energy system. 

Related Content

Coordinated Policy and Targeted Investment for an Orderly and Reliable Energy Transition https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/coordinated-policy-and-targeted-investment-for-an-orderly-and-reliable-energy-transition/

America’s Electric Power Transmission Crisis https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/podcast/americas-electric-power-transmission-crisis/

Energy Policy Now is produced by The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. For all things energy policy, visit kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu

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Rafe Pomerance, an early campaigner for climate action and the subject of Nathaniel Rich’s book “Losing Earth,” discusses the increasingly pivotal role of climate change in U.S. electoral politics.
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Rafe Pomerance, a former Washington environmental lobbyist and subject of Nathaniel Rich’s recent book on climate change, Losing Earth, spent the 1980’s bringing global warming and the need for climate action to the attention of Washington lawmakers and the country at large. Those efforts were frustrated by the end of the decade, as deliberate misinformation campaigns distorted public understanding of climate science, and as pressure from the fossil fuel industry drove many politicians to reject climate policy.

Four decades later, Pomerance offers his view on the damage done by climate denialism, and a look at the options that remain today to minimize warming and its impacts. He also discusses his current work to turn climate change into a pivotal electoral issue in Florida, a state that is emerging as a bellwether for climate politics.

Rafe Pomerance is Chairman of Arctic 21, a network of organizations focused on climate policies impacting the Arctic, and consultant to ReThink Energy Florida. He was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Environment and Development under president Bill Clinton.

Related Content 
Betting on Climate Solutions https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/betting-climate-solutions 

How the Democratic-Republican Climate Rift Became Political Reality https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now/how-democratic-republican-climate-rift-became-political-reality

Don’t Let Climate Denial Distract Us https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2019/06/11/dont-let-climate-denial-distract-us 

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Over the past half century Americans have become increasingly polarized over the issues of environment and climate change. A pioneer in the field of environmental sociology discusses how views on climate have become an essential element of party ideology, and what it means for the 2020 election.

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Climate change has emerged as a major issue in U.S. electoral politics and an early focus of debate among potential 2020 democratic presidential candidates. For a growing number of voters, climate action increasingly ranks in importance alongside traditional issues like healthcare, jobs and education.

Yet while a growing number of voters demand that candidates prioritize climate, the issue may also prove to be a political liability for candidates of all stripes in a nation where views on climate have become deeply entwined with social and political identities.

Pioneering environmental sociologist Riley Dunlap, Regents Professor at Oklahoma State University, takes a look at a half century of public dialogue over environment and climate in the United States. He shares  insights into the genesis of the public divide over climate change, where the divide stands today, and how it might influence next year’s presidential election.

Riley Dunlap is Regents Professor at Oklahoma State University, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and former Chair of the American Sociological Association’s Task Force on Sociology and Global Climate Change.

Related Content

One Future, One Vote  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2019/05/06/one-future-one-vote 

Report Highlights Three Paths for U.S. to Meet Paris Climate Target  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2019/06/04/report-highlights-three-paths-us-meet-paris-climate-target

Don’t Let Climate Denial Distract Us  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2019/06/11/dont-let-climate-denial-distract-us

Betting on Climate Solutions https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/betting-climate-solutions

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Former NRC Chairman Allison Macfarlane discusses four decades of failed efforts to find a permanent disposal solution for America’s civilian nuclear waste and new thinking, based on successful disposal efforts in the military and overseas, that could lead to a workable solution.  

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There are 90,000 tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste in temporary storage at sites across the United States. The waste is the responsibility of the federal government, which nearly four decades ago entered into an agreement with the nuclear power industry to collect and permanently dispose of spent reactor fuel. Yet today, after pouring billions of dollars into the mothballed Yucca Mountain disposal facility in Nevada, a solution to the country’s nuclear waste problem appears as distant as ever, while the nation’s nuclear waste stockpile continues to grow.

Allison Macfarlane, former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, explores the challenges, ranging from safety concerns to politics, that have foiled efforts to find a nuclear waste solution. She also discusses some new thinking, based in successful efforts to develop disposal abroad, that might make it possible to reach a permanent solution in the US. 

Allison Macfarlane, former Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission under President Barack Obama, and now a professor of public and technology policy at George Washington University.

Related Content

Keeping Nuclear Power Plants Running is Vital to Meeting Climate Goals https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2018/09/25/keeping-nuclear-power-plants-running-vital-meeting-climate-goals 

Clean Energy is an Investment, Not a Cost. https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2019/05/07/clean-energy-investment-not-cost

Nuclear Decommissioning: Paying More for Greater, Uncompensated Risks https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/nuclear-decommissioning

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Climate attribution science allows connections to be made between extreme weather events and a warming climate. The science is also being used to trace climate change to the activities of specific industries and companies, potentially generating evidence to fuel climate litigation.

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A new scientific discipline, climate attribution science, is making connections between climate change and recent extreme weather events in the U.S. and around the globe. The science is emerging as a result of advances in computer power used to model weather and the climate, and as scientists have focused their efforts to understand the causes of increasingly frequent heat waves, droughts and flooding.

Guests Peter Frumhoff, chief climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University explore attribution science and the extent to which the cause and effect relationship between climate change and weather can in fact be understood. They also look at how attribution science can be used to trace the contribution to climate change of major greenhouse gas emitters, potentially creating new legal liability for industries and countries.

Peter Frumhoff is chief climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Michael Burger is Executive Director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.

Related Content

Betting on Climate Solutions https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/betting-climate-solutions

Why Carbon Pricing Falls Short https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/why-carbon-pricing-falls-short

Don’t Let Climate Denial Distract Us https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2019/06/11/dont-let-climate-denial-distract-us

Three Pathways to Uphold America’s Paris Commitment https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now/three-pathways-uphold-americas-paris-commitment

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Can consumers take the lead in reducing U.S. carbon emissions in the absence of strong federal climate policy?  New research takes a look at three aggressive pathways to meet the U.S.’ Paris goals. 

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Regardless of the United States’ official intention to back out of the Paris Climate Accord, it’s a solid bet that at some point in the future the country will return to the global agreement, or something very much like it.  The assertion is rooted in widespread efforts from states and local communities to uphold Paris commitments, and by recent polling that shows that a strong majority of Americans favor government action to address climate change.

The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, a nonpartisan think tank, has released a report defining scenarios under which the U.S. could reach it’s Paris goal to cut net greenhouse gas emissions 80% by the year 2050.  Climate action scenarios are nothing new, but the center’s approach is unique in examining the sources of leadership that will drive down U.S. emissions.   

Matthew Binsted, a report author with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Brad Townsend, Innovation Director for the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions look at how the federal government, the states, and consumers might each take the lead in catalyzing aggressive carbon reductions.  The path taken may have implications for America’s global economic competitiveness, and domestic economic and social equity.

Related Content

Betting on Climate Solutions  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/betting-climate-solutions

Report Highlights Three Paths for U.S. to Meet Paris Climate Target. https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2019/06/04/report-highlights-three-paths-us-meet-paris-climate-target

An Inside Look at the UN’s Effort to End Energy Poverty https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now/inside-look-uns-effort-end-energy-poverty

Bold Climate Policy Is Coming.  Investors, Take Note. https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now/bold-climate-policy-coming-investors-take-note

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Global demand for coal is on the rise, with dire implications for climate. A look at why coal use endures, and what might be done to limit its use.

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The International Energy Agency forecasts that global coal use will increase over the coming decade. Why is it that coal use persists, despite intensifying efforts of citizens, industry and governments to turn to cleaner alternatives?

Kleinman Center Senior Fellow Anna Mikulska, author of recently published policy paper The Long Goodbye: Why Some Nations Can’t Kick the Coal Habit, talks through the reasons that coal remains attractive, the drivers of growing global coal demand, and about policy solutions that may slow and reverse the trend.

Anna Mikulska is a Senior Fellow with the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and Nonresident Scholar with the Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice University.

Related Content:

The Long Good Bye – Why Some Nations Can’t Kick the Coal Habit

https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/long-goodbye

Why Carbon Pricing Falls Short – And What to Do About It  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/why-carbon-pricing-falls-short

Targeting Net Zero Emissions

https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/targeting-net-zero-emissions

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Former FERC Commissioner Colette Honorable discusses the FERC's challenging relationship with the states over clean energy subsidies and their potential impact on the nation’s electricity markets. 

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The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission regulates the United States’ wholesale natural gas and electricity markets, wielding influence over the cost of energy and the environmental impacts of the nation’s energy consumption. Today, the FERC finds itself at the center of intense debate over the extent to which environmental and climate concerns should factor in the shaping of the U.S. energy system.

Colette Honorable, a FERC commissioner from 2015 to 2017, discusses FERC’s struggle to balance clean energy development with the economic and supply considerations that have been the core of its regulatory mandate. Honorable also examines the growing tension between the states and the FERC around state efforts to subsidize nuclear and renewable energy, and over environmental review of the nation’s natural gas infrastructure.

In Part 1 of this two-part interview, released on April 30, 2019, Colette discussed FERC’s history and mandate.

Colette Honorable served as a FERC commissioner from 2015 to 2017. She is now a partner in the Energy and Natural Resources Group with the Reed Smith law firm in Washington DC.

Related Content

What’s the FERC, And How is it Shaping Our Energy Future? (Part 2). https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now/whats-ferc-and-how-it-shaping-our-energy-future

Pennsylvania’s ZEC Bill Reveal. https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/reconciling-subsidized-resources

A Market for Primary Frequency Response? https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/market-primary-frequency-response

Reconciling Subsidized Resources In PJM’s Competitive Electricity Markets  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/reconciling-subsidized-resources

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Former FERC Commissioner Colette Honorable explains the work of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and its often contentious role in shaping the future of U.S. electricity and natural gas systems.
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Fundamental changes are taking place across the U.S. energy landscape.  The growth of shale natural gas has changed the mix of fuels used to generate the nation’s electricity, with natural gas surpassing coal as the fuel of choice.  At the same time, growing concern over climate change has incentivized the development of clean energy technologies and further altered the nation’s energy mix.

Yet rapid change has brought conflict, particularly between the states and the federal government over their respective roles in defining the future of our energy system.  In the electricity sector, state efforts to support renewable and nuclear power threaten the integrity of electricity markets and federal authority to shape them.  In the gas industry, federal regulators have approved a web of new pipelines to transport shale natural gas around the country, only to see some projects stall over state environmental and climate concerns.

Former FERC commissioner Colette Honorable discusses the government agency that finds itself at the center of many of today’s most critical energy debates.  The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, also known as the FERC, is charged with regulating the interstate commerce of natural gas and electricity.  Its role extends from oversight of wholesale electricity markets to environmental review of natural gas pipelines. 

This episode covers FERC, its history and mandate.  The May 15, 2019 episode will take a closer look at the key debates now embroiling the Commission. 

Colette Honorable served as a FERC commissioner from 2015 to 2017.  She is now a partner in the Energy and Natural Resources Group with the Reed Smith law firm in Washington DC. 
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Related Content
Pennsylvania’s ZEC Bill Reveal. https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/reconciling-subsidized-resources

A Market for Primary Frequency Response? https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/market-primary-frequency-response

Reconciling Subsidized Resources In PJM’s Competitive Electricity Markets  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/reconciling-subsidized-resources

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Rachel Kyte, a leader of the United Nation’s effort to eradicate energy poverty within a decade, discusses the challenge of providing universal energy access while limiting climate impacts.

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One billion people around the world live without access to electricity, and well over a third of the global population still relies on wood to cook its food. The lack of access to reliable and clean energy is a major barrier to improving human health and to driving economic growth in the world’s poorest areas.

In response to this challenge, the United Nations has set the goal of spreading access to electricity to every corner of the globe within little more than a decade. Rachel Kyte, Chief Executive Officer of Sustainable Energy for All, an organization focused on achieving the UN’s energy development goal, talks about the challenge of delivering universal access to electricity while addressing the climate impact that growing energy use might bring. She also takes a look at the challenges to financing energy transition on a global scale.

Rachel Kyte is Chief Executive Officer and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All, and a Co-Chair of UN-Energy.

Related Content

The Long Goodbye: Why Some Nations Can’t Kick the Coal Habithttps://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/long-goodbye

Climate Goes Mainstream https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2019/02/19/climate-goes-mainstream

Dispelling a National Emergency Declaration on Climate https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2019/02/06/dispelling-national-emergency-declaration-climate

Geopolitics of the Global Energy Transition. https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2019/01/23/geopolitics-global-energy-transition

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Much faith is being put in the ability of negative emissions technologies to slow the pace of climate change. Glen Peters of Norway’s Center for International Climate Research looks at the potential of negative emissions strategies, and the steep challenges to implementing them.
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The goal of the Paris Climate Accord is to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, the point beyond which the impacts of climate change are feared to be most severe and enduring. Staying below the 2 degree limit will require two complementary strategies. The first, mitigation, is now familiar, and involves limiting carbon dioxide emissions today by turning to cleaner energy and greater energy efficiency.
 
The second strategy is equally important in limiting future climate impacts, yet has received much less attention in public dialogue and policy circles. Negative emissions doesn’t yet exist in any practical sense, yet it will be counted upon to remove decades worth of carbon dioxide emissions from Earth’s atmosphere by the end of this century.
 
At their best, negative emissions technologies will play a vital role in holding climate change in check. But the technologies may also give us a false sense of security that today’s carbon emissions can reversed at some point in the future.
 
Glen Peters, research director at the Center for International Climate Research (CICERO) in Oslo, Norway, takes a close look at negative emissions, from their potential to the political and economic challenges that need to be overcome if they’re to have a meaningful impact on the climate.
 
Glen Peters is Research Director at the Center for International Climate Research (CICERO) in Oslo, Norway.  His work focuses on the human drivers of climate change and international climate policy.
 
Related Content
Targeting Net Zero Emissions https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/targeting-net-zero-emissions
 
Negative Emissions Won’t Rescue Us From Climate Change https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2018/11/08/negative-emissions-wont-rescue-us-climate-change
 
Geopolitics of the Global Energy Transition  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2019/01/23/geopolitics-global-energy-transition
 
Can the U.S. Meet Green New Deal Emissions Targets?  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2019/02/27/can-us-meet-green-new-deal-emissions-targets
 
The Inevitable Policy Response Theory  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2018/10/03/inevitable-policy-response-theory

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Local opposition to clean energy projects slows the transition to a low carbon energy system. A legal expert explores how a national policy of “repurposed energy” could speed things up.

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Clean energy infrastructure projects often face opposition from communities where they would be built, a fact that stands in the way of efforts to rapidly lower energy-sector carbon emissions. 

Alexandra Klass, a professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School, explores how “repurposed energy”, which directs clean energy projects to abandoned fossil fuel sites and marginal agricultural lands, can effectively counter local opposition and accelerate clean energy development.  She also discusses key provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that support the development of clean energy in legacy energy communities, and offers recommendations for policy to support repurposed energy nationwide.

Alexandra Klass is the James G. Degnan professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School, and a visiting scholar at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy.  Her recent work has focused on repurposed energy and policy recommendations to make it reality. 

Related Content

A New Era of Policy in Solar Geoengineering  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/a-new-era-of-policy-in-solar-geoengineering/

Ammonia’s Role in a Net-Zero Hydrogen Economy https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/ammonias-role-in-a-net-zero-hydrogen-economy/

The CO2 Transportation Challenge  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/podcast/the-co2-transportation-challenge/

Energy Policy Now is produced by The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. For all things energy policy, visit kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu

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The current energy transition is fraught with economic and social implications, not to mention abundant political squabbles.  An economist looks at the past 200 years of global energy history and finds that difficult transitions are nothing new.

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The world faces an urgent need to transform energy systems toward cleaner, renewable fuels.  Yet as challenging as the current energy transformation is, it’s worth noting that we’ve been through such momentous changes before. Over 250 years ago in England, coal fueled the start of the industrial revolution, opening the way to new economic growth and technological development that spread to many parts of the world.  

In this episode an economist explores the extent to which energy has come to underpin modern economies, and how energy resources of all types have become inseparable from our everyday lives.  

Jesús Fernández-Villaverdeis a professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania.  He is also author of an upcoming book on global economic history, with a major focus on the role of energy in economic development.

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Norway is pursuing a future rich in fossil energy and climate solutions. Can its oil company, Equinor, reconcile these priorities and continue to reliably finance the country’s expansive social welfare system? Equinor’s Clean Energy Chief weighs in.

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Much has been made of Norway’s efforts to address climate change.  The country has set the goal of going carbon neutral by the middle of the century, and generates nearly all of its electricity from hydropower. Norway’s ambitious environmental policies have even transformed the country’s car market, where EVs now account for half of new car sales.

Yet the country remains economically dependent on its fossil fuel industry, which provides key revenue for the government and its generous social welfare programs.

Much of Norway’s fossil fuel wealth comes from a single company, state-controlled Equinor, which has produced oil and gas from North Sea wells for half a century, and is now diversifying beyond fossil fuels. Equinor opened the world’s first commercial floating offshore wind farm in 2017, and is developing a carbon capture and storage business. 

Stephen Bull, Equinor’s Senior Vice President for Wind and Low Carbon Development, discusses Equinor’s efforts beyond fossil fuels and how the Norwegian government, which is environmentally progressive yet dependent on oil wealth, is driving the company. He also talks about the inherent conflict of interest when a fossil fuel company pursues non-fossil energy alternatives.

Stephen Bull, Senior Vice President for Wind and Low Carbon Development at Equinor, and Chairman of RenewableUK, a renewable energy trade association.

Related Content

Targeting Net Zero Emissions https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/targeting-net-zero-emissions

U.S. Offshore Wind Power https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/us-offshore-wind-power

U.S. Offshore Wind Industry Arrives (Podcast) https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now/us-offshore-wind-industry-arrives

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Bipartisan carbon pricing proposals have started to appear at the national level, which begs a question: what’s the right price for carbon? An advisor to California and RGGI carbon markets offers insights.
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Over the past two years the idea of putting a price on carbon has gathered new and often unexpected support from across the political spectrum. In 2017 a group of former Republican leaders offered up a proposal for a national carbon tax. This January, top economists including all of the living former Federal Reserve Chairs pledged their support for such a plan on the Op Ed page of the Wall Street Journal.  
 
While Congress has remained polarized, carbon pricing proposals have recently emerged from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. And oil companies such as Exxon and Shell now publicly  support a carbon price.
 
Guest Dallas Burtraw, an advisor to carbon cap and trade programs in California and the Eastern U.S., discusses one of the most challenging and controversial aspects facing any effort to price carbon: getting the carbon price right. When done correctly, carbon pricing can speed greenhouse emissions reductions and fuel economic growth. Yet carbon cap and trade markets, which have been operating for over a decade in Europe and the US, have at times struggled with pricing, highlight the challenges likely to face future carbon pricing efforts.
 
Dallas Burtraw is Chair of California’s Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee and a senior fellow with Resources for the Future. He is also a visiting scholar at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy.
  
Related Content:
The Inevitable Policy Response Theory  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2018/10/03/inevitable-policy-response-theory
 
Climate Policy Won’t Work Without Considering Labor. https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2018/09/17/climate-policy-wont-work-without-considering-labor
 
Lessons from a Decade of Cap & Trade  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now/lessons-decade-cap-trade
 

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China is aggressively expanding its electric vehicle industry, with the aim of becoming a leader in the global automotive market.
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China produces as many electric vehicles as the rest of the world combined, the result of aggressive government policies to boost EV demand and manufacturing.

The push to electrify is part of China’s broader effort to control air pollution in its cities, where car ownership has risen dramatically.  In a concerted effort, the government has invested heavily in the development of EV technologies, established sales quotas, and offered incentives to make EVs affordable.  Today, China has also become the world’s dominant maker of EV batteries, the most valuable component in any electric car, and its global automotive ambitions have grown.  

John Paul MacDuffie of the Wharton School of Business takes a closer look at the ambitious environmental and industrial policies that have enabled the growth of China’s electric vehicle industry.  He also discusses how China’s EV manufacturing scale, rooted in environmental policies, might upend traditional hierarchies in the global automotive industry.

John Paul MacDuffie is Professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and Director of the Program on Vehicle and Mobility Innovation, a global automotive research consortium.

Related Content:

EVs Mean Growth for These Businesses
https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2018/11/02/evs-mean-growth-these-businesses 

The Case for Electrifying California’s Cars  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2019/01/23/case-electrifying-californias-cars

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Congress has played down climate change while demanding that the Pentagon tackle climate-related security risks. A former DoD environmental lawyer looks at military efforts to address climate, and political mine fields along the way.

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When one thinks of major security threats to the United States it’s pretty standard to conjure up images of hostile foreign armies or terrorist groups. Yet over the past decade, the U.S. Department of Defense has increasingly recognized climate change as a source of global political instability, with the potential to displace populations and give rise to armed conflict.

Climate change also challenges the military’s preparedness, as weather extremes, wildfires and flooding threaten military bases here and abroad. In January, the Defense Department released a report that found that two-thirds of the critical military installations it surveyed have suffered damage or operational disruptions linked to climate risks.

Yet, while the Pentagon has increasingly taken climate into account, in public it has been relatively quiet on the issue under a president and Congress that have largely opposed climate action.

Guest Mark Nevitt, a Penn Law lecturer and former U.S. Navy pilot and attorney who served as the Department of Defense regional environmental counsel in Norfolk, Virginia, discusses the risks that climate change poses to military installations, and the touchy intersection of climate politics and national security.

Related Content 

Texas Sea Wall Shows Inadequate Disclosure on Climate Risk

https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2018/08/28/texas-sea-wall-shows-inadequate-disclosure-climate-risk

Beating the Authoritarian Playbook on Climate Change. https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2018/08/15/beating-authoritarian-playbook-climate-change

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Mankind’s impact on Earth extends well beyond climate change to the broader biosphere, where the conditions that nurtured the development of modern humans are at risk of being lost in a new epoch known as the Anthropocene.

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Climate change makes headline news, but mankind's changes to planet Earth go well beyond rising temperatures. In this episode of Energy Policy Now prominent earth system scientist Will Steffen explores the dawn of a new geologic epoch, the Anthropocene, where the systems of sea, land, and air will be unlike those experienced in human history.

The term Anthropocene, coined less than two decades ago, emphasizes the rising influence of humans on earth system processes, and our emerging role as the dominant force shaping Earth’s biologic and geologic systems. Steffen looks at the political and economic systems that have accelerated man’s impact on Earth since the middle of the 20th century, and at the role of technology and policy in slowing global change.

Will Steffen is emeritus professor at the Australian National University, former executive director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, and a former member of the Australian government’s Climate Commission.

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A group of investors that manages $80 trillion in assets forecasts bold policy action on climate by the mid-2020s. What will such action mean for capital markets and economies?

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Principles for Responsible Investment, a London-based organization focused on socially responsible investment, has introduced a dramatic vision of a global response to climate change. PRI, which is supported by the United Nations and a consortium of global investors, believes that by the middle of the next decade national governments will be compelled to take major policy actions to address climate change.

The shift, which PRI calls the Inevitable Policy Response, will fundamentally reorient the global economy and drive investment away from industries that are dependent on fossil fuels, and toward less carbon intensive activities. The policy shift will come quickly, disrupting financial markets, and overriding the assumption that industry and economies will have time to gradually adapt to the pricing of climate risks.

Nathan Fabian, Chief Responsible Investment Officer with PRI, discusses the drivers, timing and economic impacts of an expected shift in climate policy.

Nathan Fabian is Chief Responsible Investment Officer with Principles for Responsible Investment in London, UK.

Related Content

The Inevitable Policy Response Theory  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2018/10/03/inevitable-policy-response-theory

Climate Policy Won’t Work Without Considering Labor https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2018/09/17/climate-policy-wont-work-without-considering-labor

Texas Sea Wall Shows Inadequate Disclosure on Climate Risk https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2018/08/28/texas-sea-wall-shows-inadequate-disclosure-climate-risk

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Vox writer David Roberts weighs in on the media’s role in shaping views on energy and the environment.

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Vox Media’s David Roberts is one of the nation’s top energy and environmental journalists, and now also a Senior Fellow with the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. 

In this episode of Energy Policy Now, Roberts discusses the media’s coverage of the politicized issues of energy and climate and the challenge of being heard in a noisy and splintered media environment.  He also talks about what it’s like to live and breathe energy from dawn to dusk (and beyond).

David Roberts is an energy and environmental writer with Vox, and a senior fellow with the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy.

Related Content

Climate Policy Won’t Work Without Considering Labor  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2018/09/17/climate-policy-wont-work-without-considering-labor

California: The Climate Leadership We Need https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2018/09/13/california-climate-leadership-we-need

The Climate Under Kavanaugh. https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2018/09/11/climate-under-kavanaugh

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Piyush Goyal, India’s minister of railways and coal and past minister of renewable energy, discusses his country’s efforts to provide universal electricity access while limiting power sector pollution and climate impact.

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India is home to the world’s most ambitious electrification effort. By the spring of 2019, India’s government aims to connect the 30 million rural Indian homes that remain without power to the electric grid, as part of its broader effort to raise living standards and promote economic development. By 2030, India’s demand for electricity will triple as its cities and middle class grow. 

New demand for electricity will be met by a mix of new renewable generation and coal-fired power. Emissions will rise as a result, highlighting the challenge India’s government faces in addressing air pollution and climate impacts at the same time it strives to eliminate energy poverty.

In this episode of Energy Policy Now, Piyush Goyal, India’s minister of railways, coal, and corporate affairs, discusses the potentially conflicting aims of providing universal electricity access and addressing environmental challenges. Until 2017, Goyal was minister of power, coal, new and renewable energy.

Piyush Goyal has been selected as the 2018 recipient of the Kleinman Center’s annual Carnot Prize in recognition of his contributions to energy policy. He will officially receive the prize in New Delhi.

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This Year’s Carnot Prize Honors Courage Amidst Complexity https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2018/07/30/years-carnot-prize-honors-courage-amidst-complexity

India’s Now or Never Climate Opportunity
https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now/indias-now-or-never-climate-opportunity

Negative Emissions Won’t Rescue Us From Climate Change https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2018/11/08/negative-emissions-wont-rescue-us-climate-change

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As Washington relaxes standards governing methane leaks, oil and gas industry leaders pledge to limit emissions. An economist and an environmental advocate examine the impact of methane leaks and the credibility of industry efforts to contain them.

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In September, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior pushed forward two separate regulations that will, in effect, hold oil and gas companies less accountable for methane gas emissions into the atmosphere. The new rules ease requirements that energy companies detect and repair methane leaks from wells and pipelines. The Interior rule, which has gone into effect, and the EPA rule, which is now open for 60-days of public comment, are part of a series of Trump administration efforts to undo methane regulations that the same agencies had written during the Obama administration.

The agencies acknowledge that the looser regulations will have a negative climate impact. Methane is a greenhouse gas that can be 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Yet the current administration maintains that the Obama-era rules would place undue economic burden on energy companies, while many energy companies say that they’re already acting to reduce emissions, and the stricter rules are duplicative.

Guests Catherine Hausman, assistant professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, and Ben Ratner of the Environmental Defense Fund, discuss the economic and environmental costs of methane emissions, and how estimates of these costs tend to vary widely. Hausman and Ratner also discuss why methane emissions are so hard to detect, explore initiatives to both speed and lower the cost of containing leaks, and look at whether industry’s voluntary efforts to reduce emissions are enough.

Catherine Hausman is a visiting scholar at the Kleinman Center, and an assistant professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, where she focuses on environmental and energy economics.

Ben Ratner is a Senior Director at the Environmental Defense Fund, based in Washington DC, where he focuses on collaborating with businesses on cleaner energy.

Related Content

The Hubbub About Gas Storage Levels https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2018/10/15/hubbub-about-gas-storage-levels

Fighting Climate Change and the Social Cost of Carbon

https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/fighting-climate-change-and-social-cost-carbon

How a Deepening Natural Gas Market Affects Europe https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2018/09/06/how-deepening-natural-gas-market-affects-europe

Carbon Capture’s Clean Coal Ambition  

https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now/carbon-captures-clean-coal-ambition

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Each fall, the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy hosts a student blog competition, where students from any field of study can showcase their creativity, innovation, and passion for energy policy and sustainability. This year, we welcomed audio submissions, and we’re featuring our first-place audio blog here. This year’s winner is Benjamin Chen, a junior majoring in economics and minoring in computer science and environmental management. Ben’s winning audio blog is titled “Corporate Disclosure Law on Energy Policy”.

Benjamin Chen is a junior majoring in economics at the University of Pennsylvania.

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IPCC lead climate author Oliver Geden talks about how politicians view the IPCC’s 1.5 degree report, and implications for climate action.

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On October 8ththe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its report on Global Warming of 1.5 degrees. The report describes expected environmental, economic and social impacts brought by 1.5 degrees Celsius of climate warming, and the actions that need to be taken on a global scale to limit warming to that level.

The report’s timing is crucial, as it comes ahead of this December’s global climate meeting in Katowice, Poland, where nations that signed onto the Paris Climate Accord will establish the rules that will guide them in reaching their climate commitments. The IPCC’s report serves as a guide to how much countries might be able to limiting warming. Yet at the same time, the report highlights the unprecedented effort that would be required to hold to the 1.5 degree target.

Oliver Geden, a lead author of the IPCC’s next major report on climate change, discusses the implications of the IPCC report for policymakers and for the upcoming UN Climate Summit.

Oliver Geden is Head of the Europe Research Division at the German Institute for International Security Affairs in Berlin, which advises the German government and European Union on international policy issues. He is also a recent visiting scholar at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. Geden is a lead author the IPCC’s 6thAssessment Report on climate, due in 2022.

Related Content

Climate Policy Won’t Work Without Considering Labor https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2018/09/17/climate-policy-wont-work-without-considering-labor

Power Over the Twenty-First Century Electric Grid https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/power-over-twenty-first-century-electric-grid

Comparative Pathways Interim Report https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/comparative-pathways-interim-report

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