Our largest cohort of participants work around the world. Part of their coursework involves writing policy memos that can spark new policy. (At least one participant's memo already has helped do that.) We're sharing a sample of these memos. For more about the course and its goals, visit this page.
(Courtesy Billy Wilson, via Flickr Creative Commons.) The author argues that Octopus Energy needs to reach out to occupants of homes like these to make good on its post-carbon promises.
According to this consultant, Octopus Energy must build measurable positive momentum towards the customer-centric (and just) energy transition it implies in its branding. It should invest capital toward changes in marketing and customer support. By doing so, this memo suggests, Octopus can deliver more fully on its promise.
The current Congress has power to kick-start grid upgrades. Does it want to use that power to the fullest?
The author, an energy professional and Illinois resident, argues for transmission investment as a lynchpin of infrastructure investment. She makes the case that other infrastructure goals need robust clean-energy transmission to become real.
(Courtesy of Jo Zimny Photos via Flickr Creative Commons.) Ithaca took its buildings off fossil fuel. It aims to take its job base in the same direction.
At the local level, a Green New Deal can crowd in private capital. In this update of a Financing and Deploying Clean Energy policy memo, the sustainability director for Ithaca, NY explains the holistic economic and energy-justice strategy driving the city's project to decarbonize all its buildings.
(Photo by overWHAMmed, from Flickr Creative Commons). This transmission line in Pelzer, SC, testifies to the market potential for investment in new high-voltage lines.
Can transmission of clean energy become more competitive and more ambitious with a federal tax credit? The author, a sustainable finance professional, argues on a bipartisan basis that it can and that transmission tax credits will tap a multibillion-dollar pipeline of ready projects.
(Photo by Hugh Kenny, Piedmont Environmental Council.) A solar array in Virginia stands for the kinds of investment that could crowd in with a properly targeted federal carbon price.
Climate scientists in the latest
Report warned that without immediate large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, climate change will cause devastating economic and human losses. Policymakers must come together to implement a comprehensive climate change strategy in the United States.
(Photo by Patrick Kovarik for Getty Images in Fashionista, September 25, 2020.) Chanel once staged a fashion show with wind turbines. The author argues that assertive tax policy can make renewable wardrobes a fashion-forward investment.
The US, as the largest consumer and highest emitter of carbon per capita, bears a critical share of the responsibility to facilitate a transition to sustainable practices. This article lays out the rationale and a pathway for the US to incentivize the apparel industry’s decarbonization. I propose a preferential tariff...
