I-SEE Public Lecture: The role of policy for accelerating energy innovation to meet climate goals

I-SEE Sustainable Energy & the Environment Webinar

The role of policy for accelerating energy innovation to meet climate goals

Professor Laura Diaz Anadon, Professor of Climate Change Policy Director, Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance (CEENRG), Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge

Innovation in clean-energy technologies is central to achieving a net-zero energy system. While the pace of innovation in some key energy technologies has exceeded expectations, faster progress in these and a wider range of technologies is necessary to meet climate goals. It has long been argued that, among other actions, governments should increase support for clean energy research and development and support early markets. There is, however, a more limited understanding of how to design these policies and institutions or what else may be needed. There is also growing recognition of that fostering a just transition is essential and not a given and an interest in the role of green industrial policy in many parts of the world. In this talk Prof Anadon shares key insights regarding what we have learnt over the past decade regarding how to foster a just energy transition, covering experiences from industrialized countries and emerging economies, as well as analysis of policies and institutions from R&D to deployment and finance.

Prof Anadon will summarize what we have learnt about the drivers of innovation in key energy technologies and the policy structures and processes that could help support efforts to build a net zero economy.

Professor Laura Diaz Anadon holds the chaired Professorship of Climate Change Policy at the University of Cambridge, where she directs the interdisciplinary Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance (CEENRG) (add hyperlink to CEENRG: https://www.ceenrg.landecon.cam.ac.uk/ ) at the Department of Land Economy. An engineer-economist by training, Professor Anadon is also a Fellow of St. John’s College and a long-standing Affiliate of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) at Harvard University. Her research on energy, climate and innovation policy assesses the drivers of technological change in key energy technologies, the impact of different policies on technological innovation, economic, and distributional outcomes, and the interaction between science and technology and policy making. She is a Lead Author of the latest Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Working Group III on Mitigating Climate Change. Among other roles, she serves as elected Vice-Chair of the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change and on the Board of Cambridge Enterprise. In June 2018 she was awarded the XVII Fundación Banco Sabadell Prize for Economic Research for the best young Spanish economics researcher, and in 2021 she was awarded a Distinguished Visiting Professorship at Tsinghua University.

• I-SEE webinars are free and open for all to attend

• Eventbrite registration closes on 17 October at 15:30

• The ZOOM LINK to the event will be sent to you in an email on 17 October at 15:30

https://www.bath.ac.uk/campaigns/i-see-sustainable-energy-the-environment-webinars/