Panels and Panelists

Friday

Cities and Emissions Mitigation

Friday 1:00-2:30p
Burke Auditorium - Third Floor, Kroon Hall

This panel brings together experts from the nonprofit, academic, and legal sectors to discuss the recent rise in city commitments to emissions mitigation. Speakers will explore the origins of city action, promising policy interventions, and next steps for building on local, progressive momentum for climate action. Speakers include Doug Sims, Director and Senior Advisor of the Green Finance Center and Resilient Communities, Healthy People, & Thriving Communities Program at NRDC; Caitlin McCoy, Climate, Clean Air, & Energy Fellow for the Environmental & Energy Law Program at Harvard Law School; and Karl-Ludwig Schibel, Senior Fellow at the Climate Alliance. The panel will be moderated by Yale’s own Ken Gillingham, Associate Professor of Economics at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and the School of Management.

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Coastal Climate Adaptation

Friday 1:00-2:30p
Bowers Auditorium - Sage Hall

This panel will explore the ways that sub-national governments and the private sector are preparing for climate change-induced threats along our coastline. Katie Spidalieri will discuss tools and strategies for coastal adaptation, Grover Fugate will speak about Rhode Island’s efforts to understand and prepare for coastal threats, and Brad Howe will present New York’s Living Breakwaters project, and ambitious endeavor to enhance the physical, social, and ecological resilience of the coastline. The panel will be moderated by Shimon Anisfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.

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Energy and Just Transition

Friday 3:30-5:00p
Burke Auditorium - Third Floor, Kroon Hall

This panel brings together experts from the nonprofit, government, academic, and private sectors to discuss paths to a just transition. Such a transition would not only rid our energy system of fossil fuels, but also ensure that energy remains accessible and affordable to the most vulnerable members of our society along the way. Speakers include Judith Judson, Vice President of Distributed Energy Systems at Ameresco and former Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources and Massachusetts Public Utilities Commission; Darren Springer, current Chief of Burlington Electric Department, former Chief of Staff to Governor Shumlin, and former Senior Policy Advisor for Energy & Environment and General Counsel to Bernie Sanders; and Jill Tauber, Vice President of Litigation for Climate & Energy at Earthjustice. The panel will be moderated by Narasimha Rao, Assistant Professor of Energy Systems at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

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Saturday

State Coalitions for Climate Action

Saturday 10:00-11:30a
Burke Auditorium - Third Floor, Kroon Hall

The State Coalitions for Climate Action Panel at the 2020 NDEL Conference will highlight how states have been working in in the absence of, and against, federal directive. Commissioner Suuberg of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection will discuss the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Professor Richard Revesz from the NYU School of Law will discuss the legal issues surrounding the California waiver. Dennis McLerran, former EPA Regional Administrator and Executive Director of the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, will discuss the award-winning Northwest Ports Clean Air Strategy.

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Climate and Sustainable Food & Agriculture

Saturday 10:00-11:30a
Bowers Auditorium - Sage Hall

The Climate and Sustainable Agriculture Panel will address policies and approaches for sustainable and healthy food systems at the state and local level. Agriculture accounts for over 17% of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it also represents a crucial climate opportunity with nearly half of the top twenty climate solutions agriculturally-based. The panel will address climate impacts from agriculture and solutions ranging from urban agriculture to sustainable procurement, plant-based food as medicine, food justice, and food waste. The panel will be moderated by Yale Law School Law Ethics, and Animals Program Faculty Co-Director, Jonathan Lovvorn, and panelists Rachel Atcheson (Deputy Strategist, Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams Office), Latha Swamy (Food Policy Director, City of New Haven) and Chloe Waterman (Manager, Climate-Friendly Food Purchasing Program, Friends of the Earth).

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Labor and Climate Organizing

Saturday 1:00-2:30p
Burke Auditorium - Third Floor, Kroon Hall

The Labor and Climate Organizing Panel will challenge the narrative that environmental justice is inherently in tension with working class interests. Communities vulnerable to both environmental destruction and industrial transitions toward green technology are key sites for the development of grassroots coalitions between movements for labor and climate justice. At this session, we will hear from organizers and elected officials involved in these localized efforts: Michelle Martinez of the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition, Nayyirah Sharif of Flint Rising, and Michigan State Rep Pohutsky of Michigan. The lessons and thoughts they share will drive a group discussion about power-mapping in our own communities in order to build coalitional platforms that simultaneously address the emergencies of climate change and economic inequity. This session will examine state and local-level activism in Michigan in order to imagine a future of labor-climate justice dialogue more broadly and draw attention to the industrial impacts of green technology in the Midwest.

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Climate Change Litigation

Saturday 2:30-4:00p
Burke Auditorium - Third Floor, Kroon Hall

This panel is a conversation with leaders in the field to discuss the challenges and opportunities of recent climate change litigation by localities. Our panelists include Wesley Kelman from Hagens Berman, of counsel on several county and city climate litigation suits; Suzanne Sangree, Senior Counsel for Public Safety & Director of Affirmative Litigation for the City of Baltimore; Hana Vizcarra from Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program, who focuses on litigation surrounding climate disclosures by oil and gas companies. The panel will be moderated by Joshua Galperin (University of Pittsburgh) who previously directed Yale Law’s Environmental Protection Clinic.

Read about the panelists ➔