Community Event | Café Scientifique

Details

Door opens at 18h30 - Last drinks round at 18h45 - the venue doesn't serve food

Invited Speaker - Dr. Bessie Noll

In the face of escalating climate change, the imperative for governments to take action to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions has never been more urgent. To facilitate a transition to low-carbon energy systems, the scientific community (largely) agrees on strong public policy intervention as a necessary tool for acceleration. One such tool, green industrial policy, has recently surfaced as a more popular approach, marking a significant evolution in climate strategy as well as global trade order (e.g. the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)). However, green industrial policy is a two-sided coin: it is both a climate action plan and a vehicle for promoting a “domestic-first” agenda that prioritizes local industry and job creation.

Politically, this combination promises a higher probability of success domestically, i.e. more likely to garner voter and industry support, but may perhaps strain global political dynamics, i.e. alienate close trade partners and strain relations with allies (e.g. the EU’s response to the IRA). Technologically, a domestic-first approach may accelerate local innovation and adoption, though may also limit global cost reductions of key low-carbon energy technologies for decarbonization. Given these tradeoffs, what is the best way forward for global industrial climate policy and how can we best manage some of the positive/negative consequences of such policies?

Bessie Noll (she/her) is a postdoctoral researcher at the Energy and Technology Policy Group at ETH Zürich. Her research examines the effects of policy intervention on the development of clean energy technologies and transitional outcomes of modern energy systems with a specific focus on the low-carbon transport transition. Bessie holds a PhD in energy and technology policy from ETH Zürich and a MSc in mechanical engineering from Stanford University.