Abstract: For the first time in history, the full financial weight of the United States federal government is aligned behind a transition to clean energy. A trio of energy, infrastructure, and science laws passed by the last Congress will deploy over half a trillion dollars of public funding over the next decade to wean the United States off fossil fuels and make cleaner alternatives cheap and ubiquitous. The challenge now: to build new clean energy infrastructure at an unprecedented pace and scale and take full advantage of this historic opportunity. This talk will discuss how far the U.S. has come on the path to net-zero emissions, how much work remains, and the many non-financial barriers that will slow the pace of transition unless proactively addressed. Prof. Jenkins leads the ZERO Lab at Princeton University, was a co-PI for the landmark Net-Zero America study, a co-author of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine report Accelerating Decarbonization of the U.S. Energy System, and currently leads the REPEAT Project, which assesses the impacts of federal energy and climate policies on an ongoing basis.

Bio: Jesse D. Jenkins is an assistant professor at Princeton University with a joint appointment in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment. He is also an affiliated faculty with the Center for Policy Research in Energy and Environment at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and an associated faculty at the High Meadows Environment Institute.

Hosted by The 2030 Project: A Cornell Climate Initiative - harnessing the collaborative scholarship, science, innovation, and entrepreneurialism of a world-class research university to scale tangible climate solutions.

April 10, 2023 | 2:45-4:00 P.M.
(155 Olin Hall or Zoom)

This event is presented as part of the 2023 Perspectives on the Climate Change Challenge Seminar Series:

• Most Mondays, Spring Semester 2023, 2:45-4:00pm

This university-wide seminar series is open to the public, and provides important views on the critical issue of climate change, drawing from many perspectives and disciplines. Experts from Cornell University and beyond present an overview of the science of climate change and climate change models, the implications for agriculture, ecosystems, and food systems, and provide important economic, ethical, and policy insights on the issue. The seminar is being organized and sponsored by the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering and Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability.