Energy

Christine Todd Whitman, former New Jersey Governor and US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator joins Stephanie Ratte, a student at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, for a conversation about the role of nuclear energy after the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Jennifer McIvor, Vice President of Environmental at MidAmerican Energy speaks with Becky Gallagher of the Yale School of Forestry and the Yale School of Management about the various environmental issues that energy companies face. While climate change dominates the conversation, companies like MidAmerican are also working to clean up water, protect endangered species, and otherwise coordinate energy production with environmental protection. 

Kate Gordon leads the Energy & Climate team at Next Generation. In this episode, she talks about the promising signs of change in US climate and energy policy, with a special focus on the innovations emerging from California. There’s increasing public and private investment in transforming California’s economy, which is now the world’s eighth largest, and Gordon explains its significant impact on the scale of clean energy solutions across the state and what this could mean for national policy solutions.

In 2013, Denmark produced more than 40 percent of its electricity from renewable energy – with more than 85 percent of this renewable energy produced by co-operatives owned and managed by ordinary citizens. In this podcast, Erik Christiansen, of Copenhagen Business School and the Middelgrunen Wind Co-op, outlines how Denmark has approached its renewable energy transition, and why the country is still on track to meet its targets: 50 percent from wind by 2020, 100 percent renewable electricity by 2030, and 100 percent renewable transportation by 2050. 

The 2014 Environmental Index (EPI) ranks countries on high-priority environmental concerns, including air quality, water management, and climate change. In this podcast, Angel Hsu, lead author of the 2014 EPI, discusses the rankings and global performance trends. Overall, the index reveals that the world is doing well on improving drinking water and sanitation. Progress in these categories tracks the concerted pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals, which have clear targets, strategies, and metrics for assessment on water and sanitation.