#Infra4Dev Conference: Decarbonizing Infrastructure

Opening Remarks

• Makhtar Diop, Vice President for Infrastructure, World Bank
• Ted Miguel, Director of the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA), UC Berkeley

First Keynote Address

• Michael Grubb, Professor of Energy and Climate Change, University College London

Pathways to Decarbonization & Digital Innovation in Energy
(Parallel Session 1)

Moderated by Vivien Foster, Chief Economist, Infrastructure Vice Presidency, World Bank

• Robert Armstrong, Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative (MITEI) and Chevron Professor of Chemical Engineering, MIT
• Massimo Filippini, Director and Professor, Centre for Energy Policy and Economics (CEPE), ETH Zürich and Professor, Public and Energy economics, University of Lugano
• Kenneth Gillingham, Associate Professor of Economics, School of Environment, Yale University
• Michael B. McElroy, Gilbert Butler Professor, Environmental Studies, Harvard University

Pathways to Decarbonization & Digital Innovation in Transport
(Parallel Session 2)

Moderated by Binyam (Ben) Reja, Transport Practice Manager, World Bank

• Marta Gonzalez, Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning, UC Berkeley
• Marco Gonzalez-Navarro, Associate Professor, Dept of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley
• Gilles Duranton, Dean’s Chair in Real Estate Professor, U Penn
• Lewis M. Fulton, Director, STEPS Program and Energy Futures Program, Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis

Second & Third Keynote Addresses

• Catherine Wolfram, Professor of Business Administration, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley
• Sol Hsiang, Professor of Public Policy, UC Berkeley

Lead Policy Panel: A Green New Deal for the World

Moderated by Demetrios Papathanasiou, Global Director for Energy, World Bank             

• Guyde Moore, Senior Policy Fellow, Center for Global Development and former Minister of Public Works, Liberia
• Dolf Gielen, Director of Technology & Innovation, IRENA
• Will Cavendish, Global Digital Services Leader, Arup and former Director General of International Energy and Climate Change in the UK
• Claver Gatete, Minister of Infrastructure in Rwanda
• Laura Cozzi, Chief Energy Modeler, International Energy Agency (IEA)

Lightning Talks: Energy (Parallel Talks 1)

Moderated by Maria Vagliasindi, Lead Economist, World Bank

• Ranjit Deshmukh, Assistant Professor in the Environmental Studies department, UC Santa Barbara
• Jevgenijs Steinbuks, Economist, Sustainability and Infrastructure Team, Development Research Group, World Bank
• Dharik Mallapragada, Research Scientist, MIT Energy Initiative
• Prudence Dato, Researcher, Department of Business and Economics, University of Basel
• Jan Witajewski-Baltvilks, Assistant Professor and Head of Warsaw Ecological Economics Center, University of Warsaw
• Francesco Dolci, Scientific Officer, Joint Research Centre (JRC) - European Commission's Science Service

Lightning Talks: Transport (Parallel Talks 2)

Moderated by Cecilia Briceno-Garmendia, Lead Economist, World Bank

• Fan Zhang, Senior Economist, Office of the Chief Economist for Infrastructure, World Bank
• Kilian Heilmann, Research Economist and Data Scientist, Lyft
• Andres Gomez-Lobo, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, University of Chile and former Minister of Transport and Telecommunications in Chile
• Teevrat Garg, Assistant Professor of Economics, School of Global Policy & Strategy, UC San Diego
• Joshua Linn, Associate Professor, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Maryland and Senior Fellow, Resources for the Future (RFF)
• Joanna Moody, Research Program Manager, Mobility Systems Center, MIT Energy Initiative

Pathways to Decarbonization in Energy (11am-12pm)

Chair: Vivien Foster (Chief Economist, Infrastructure, World Bank)

OVERVIEW

The energy sector is undergoing major transformations, facing formidable challenges in terms of achieving energy security to provide universal access, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Such a transformation requires a combination of technology selection and policy choices both on the supply and demand side, to ensure providing reliable and clean energy within a rapidly evolving system, characterized by the convergence of power, transportation, industrial, and building sectors, and the challenges of multi-sectoral integration.

PANELISTS

1.       Professor Robert Armstrong, Director MIT Energy Initiative

Topic:  Pathways to a low-carbon energy future

Background: based on results of MIT initiatives and recent papers “Plausible energy futures: A framework for evaluating options, impacts, and national energy choices” MITEI working paper, July 2020

2.       Kenneth Gillingham Associate Professor of Economics, Yale Department of Environment & Economics & National Bureau of Economic Research

Topic:  The role of energy technologies, including solar PV & energy innovation in mitigating climate change

Background: based on papers

• "Induced Innovation in Energy Technologies and Systems: A Review of Evidence and Potential Implications for CO2 Mitigation" (with Michael Grubb et al.), Revisions Requested Environmental Research Letters
• Social Learning and Solar Photovoltaic Adoption (with Bryan Bollinger) Management Science (2020)

3.       Michael McElroy, Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Studies & Chair, Harvard-China Project on Energy, Economy and Environment

Topics: Challenges & opportunities for public policy posed by the rapid pace of industrialization in developing countries such as China and India, with a focus on green hydrogen

Background: based on results of Harvard-China Project on Energy, Economy and Environment and papers

• Sherman, Peter, Xinyu Chen, and Michael McElroy. "Offshore wind: An opportunity for cost-competitive decarbonization of China’s energy economy." Science advances 6.8 (2020): eaax9571.
• Lu, Tianguang, et al. "India’s potential for integrating solar and on-and offshore wind power into its energy system." Nature communications 11.1 (2020): 1-10.
• Lin, et al. "Economic and Technological Feasibility of Using Power-to-Hydrogen Technology under Higher Wind Penetration in China" Submitted to Energy.

4.       Massimo Filippini, Full Professor in Economics ETH Zurich and the Università della Svizzera Italiana director of the Centre for Energy Policy and Economics (CEPE) at ETH Zürich

Topic: Demand side energy efficiency opportunities & challenges for firms and household (including behavioral issues)

Background: based on

• Carlos de Miguel, Massimo Filippini, Xavier Labandeira, José M. Labeaga and Andreas Löschel “Low-​carbon Transitions: Economics and Policy”, Energy Economics, vol. 84, 2019,
• Massimo Filippini, Thomas Geissmann, Valerie J. Karplus and Da Zhang “The productivity impacts of energy efficiency programs in developing countries: Evidence from iron and steel firms in China” China Economic Review, vol. 59/
• Massimo Filippini, Nilkanth Kumar and Suchita Srinivasan Energy-​related financial literacy and bounded rationality in appliance replacement attitudes: evidence from Nepal Environment and Development Economics, vol. 25: no. 4, pp. 399-​422, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.

***

SPEAKERS’ BIOS

Robert C. Armstrong
Director MIT Energy Initiative

Robert C. Armstrong is MITEI’s director and the Chevron Professor of Chemical Engineering. A member of the MIT faculty since 1973, Armstrong served as head of the Department of Chemical Engineering from 1996 to 2007 and has directed MITEI since 2013, after serving as the organization’s deputy director from 2007-2013 with founding director Ernest Moniz. His research is focused on pathways to a low-carbon energy future.

Armstrong has been elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2020) and the National Academy of Engineering (2008). He received the 2006 Bingham Medal from the Society of Rheology, which is devoted to the study of the science of deformation and flow of matter, and the Warren K. Lewis Award and the Professional Progress Award in 1992, both from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

Armstrong was a member of MIT’s Future of Natural Gas and Future of Solar Energy study groups. He advised the teams that developed MITEI’s most recent reports, The Future of Nuclear Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World (2018) and Insights into Future Mobility (2019), and is co-chairing the new MITEI study, The Future of Storage. He co-edited Game Changers: Energy on the Move with former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz.

Source: http://energy.mit.edu/profile/robert-armstrong/

Kenneth Gillingham
Associate Professor, Yale School of the Environment

Research Interests

Environmental & Energy Economics, Industrial Organization, Public Economics, Empirical Methods,
Technological Change, Transportation Economics, Energy & Climate Policy Modeling

Short Biography

Kenneth Gillingham is an Associate Professor of Economics at Yale University, with a primary appointment in the School of the Environment and secondary appointments in the Department of Economics and School of Management. In 2015-2016 he served as the Senior Economist for Energy and the Environment at the White House Council of Economic Advisers. He is an energy and environmental economist drawing from the fields of applied microeconomics, industrial organization, and energy modeling. His research examines the adoption of new energy technologies, energy efficiency, quantitative policy and program analysis, and climate change policy. He has published widely on consumer decisions in energy efficiency and renewable energy, as well as on climate and energy policy. Outlets for his work have included Science, Nature, PNAS, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, RAND Journal of Economics, Quantitative Economics, Management Science, Marketing Science, Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, Journal of Environmental Economics & Management, and the Energy Journal. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and several foundations. Prior to joining Yale, was a Fulbright Fellow in New Zealand and a Fellow for Energy and the Environment at the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Before this, he worked at Resources for the Future and the integrated assessment modeling group at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He received a Ph.D. in Management Science & Engineering and Economics, as well as M.S. degrees in Statistics and Management Science & Engineering, from Stanford University. His undergraduate degree was an A.B. in Economics and Environmental Studies from Dartmouth College.

Source: https://environment.yale.edu/gillingham/bio.htm

Michael B. McElroy

Chair, Harvard-China Project
Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Studies, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Michael B. McElroy received his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Applied Mathematics at Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1960 and 1962 respectively. From 1970 to 1996, he was Abbott Lawrence Rotch Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Harvard University, and since 1996, he has been Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Studies at Harvard University. He is the author of more than 250 journal articles, 3 books, 3 edited books and more than 30 articles in Nature and Science. His research interests include atomic physics, planetary science, atmospheric chemistry, climate science, global climate change mitigation, power and energy science and policy, and the challenges posed for sustainable development in China. At Harvard, he heads up the Harvard-China Project on Energy, Economy and Environment, which has collaborated for more than 20 years with colleagues in China to advance this last objective. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science, the American Association for the Advanced of Science, the American Geophysical Union, and Royal Irish Academy of Arts and Science. He has served at Harvard University as Director of the Center for Earth and Planetary Physics, as founding Director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment, and as founding Chair of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. He served for 8 years from 1997 to 2006 as a member of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED), and is serving another 5 year term beginning in December 2017. CCICED is a body constituted in 1992 to advise China’s top leaders on these important interconnected issues. 

Source: https://chinaproject.harvard.edu/people/michael-b-mcelroy

Massimo Filippini

Massimo Filippini is a Full Professor in Economics and has a joint professorship at the ETH Zurich and the Università della Svizzera Italiana since October 1999. He is director of the Centre for Energy Policy and Economics (CEPE) at ETH Zürich, member of the Center for Economic Research at ETH Zurich (CER-ETH), coordinator of the network “Empirical Methods in Energy Economics” (EMEE) and a member of the board of Country Representatives of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE). He has also been the President of the Swiss Association for Energy Economics (SAEE). He studied economics at the University of Zurich, where he also received his doctorate. Massimo Filippini has been a visiting scholar at MIT (Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change) and at the Harvard University (John F. Kennedy School of Government of Harvard) and visiting researcher at the Harvard University (Economics department), University of York (Centre for Health Economics), University of British Columbia (Center for Transportation Studies).

Professor Filippini´s main fields of specialization are: energy economics and policy, behavioral economics, applied econometrics and public economics.

His main areas of research are: the economics of energy efficiency, energy and development, empirical analysis of energy demand, regulation and deregulation of the energy markets, productivity and efficiency analysis of firms, as well as evaluation of energy policy instruments.

Massimo Filippini is a member of several editorial boards and has published several books, book chapters, and more than 90 articles in top field and field peer-reviewed journals.

Source: https://eepe.ethz.ch/people/massimo.html

Pathways to Decarbonization in Transport (11am-12pm)

Chair: Binyam Reja (Practice Manager, Transport Global Knowledge & Expertise)

OVERVIEW

Global transport emissions increased at a much slower pace, owing to efficiency improvements, electrification and greater use of green fuels. Nevertheless, transportation is still responsible for 24% of direct CO2 emissions from fuel combustion. Road vehicles—cars, trucks, buses and two- and three-wheelers—account for nearly three-quarters of transport CO2 emissions, and emissions from aviation and shipping continue to rise, highlighting the need for greater focus on these hard-to-abate subsectors. Due to rapid urbanization in developing countries’ megacities, the rapid growth in vehicle miles travelled coupled with the rapid increase in traffic congestion on highways of virtually every large urban area, explain a major portion of the observed deterioration of urban air quality, and congestion and challenge the sustainability of traditionally used modes of transportation. The technologies used in transport of passengers and freight have different features, fueling needs, and even differences in infrastructure requirements (e.g., sidewalks, bicycle lanes, and near-ground air space), posing challenge for urban planners and decision-makers.

PANELISTS

1.       Professor Gilles Duranton, Professor, Wharton, University of Pennsylvania

Topic:  Decarbonization of cities: mobility & congestion, greenhouse emission, in developing countries

Background: based on recent papers

• "Mobility and congestion in urban India" (with Prottoy A. Akbar, Victor Couture and Adam Storeygard)
• Measuring the cost of congestion in a highly congested city: Bogotá (with Prottoy Akbar), forthcoming
• "The Economics of Urban Density" (with Gilles Duranton and Diego Puga), Journal of Economic Perspective

2.       Marco Gonzalez-Navarro, Associate Professor, University of California, Berkeley

Topic:  Mass transit, Subways, growth & urban air pollution – implications for greenhouse emission in developing countries

Background: based on papers

• "Subways and Urban Air Pollution", conditionally accepted American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. Nicolas Gendron-Carrier, Marco Gonzalez-Navarro, Stefano Polloni, and Matthew Turner.
• Subways and Urban Growth: Evidence from Earth" (2018) Journal of Urban Economics, Vol. 108, pp. 85-106. Marco Gonzalez-Navarro and Matthew Turner.   

3.       Lewis Fulton, Director, STEPS, Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis

Topic:  Technology and Fuel Transition Scenarios for Cars and Trucks

Background: based on recent projects:

• Cost-Benefit Analysis of Alternative Vehicles in the Philippines Using Immediate and Distant Future Scenarios
• Automation, Electrification, and Shared Mobility in Freight

4.       Marta Gonzalez, Associate Professor, University of Berkeley

Topic:  The role of electrification of transport in mitigating climate change, use of big data to track traffic & congestion

Background: based on papers

• Xu, Yanyan, Serdar Çolak, Emre C. Kara, Scott J. Moura, and Marta C. González. “Planning for electric vehicle needs by coupling charging profiles with urban mobility.” Nature Energy 3, no. 6 (2018): 484-493.
• Kalila A., Awwad Z.*, Di Clemente R.+ and Gonzalez M.C., “Big Data Fusion to Estimate
• Fuel Consumption: A Case Study of Riyadh”, Transportation Research Records, (2018)

***

SPEAKERS’ BIOS

Gilles Duranton

Dean's Chair in Real Estate Professor, The Wharton School

Gilles Duranton is professor of real estate and holds the Dean’s Chair in Real Estate. He joined Wharton in 2012 after holding academic positions at the University of Toronto and the London School of Economics. A graduate from HEC Paris and Sorbonne University, he obtained his PhD in economics from the London School of Economics and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris.

His current work focuses land use and urban growth in emerging cities, the measurement of urban transportation and congestion, land development, and the geography of innovation and technology. He is also interested in the evaluation of the effects of infrastructure and place-based policies.

He serves as a co-editor for the Journal of Urban Economics and sits on the editorial board of several other academic journals. He is a fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research and of the Center for Economic Policy Research. He regularly works as consultant on regional and urban policy for national governments and international organizations. He was also the 2011 president of the North American Regional Science Association and the 2016–2017 president of the Urban Economics Association. He is currently the chair of the Wharton Real Estate Department.

Source: https://executiveeducation.wharton.upenn.edu/faculty/gilles-duranton/

Marta C. Gonzalez

Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley

 Marta C. Gonzalez is Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Physics Research faculty in the Energy Technology Area (ETA) at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

With the support of several companies, cities and foundations, her research team develops computer models to analyze digital traces of information mediated by devices. They process this information to manage the demand in urban infrastructures in relation to energy and mobility. Her recent research uses billions of mobile phone records to understand the appearance of traffic jams and the integration of electric vehicles into the grid, smart meter data records to compare the policy of solar energy adoption and card transactions to identify habits in spending behavior.

Prior to joining Berkeley, Marta worked as an Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT, a member of the Operations Research Center and the Center for Advanced Urbanism. She is a member of the scientific council of technology companies such as Gran Data, PTV and the Pecan Street Project consortium.

Source: https://ced.berkeley.edu/ced/faculty-staff/marta-gonzalez

Marco Gonzalez-Navarro

Associate Professor, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Berkeley

Marco Gonzalez-Navarro is Associate Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. His research area is development economics, focused on infrastructure in developing countries. He has worked on subway infrastructure, rural land titling, road infrastructure, cost of living adjustments, crime, and political economy. He is currently on the Editorial board at Journal of Urban Economics and Associate Editor at Regional Science and Urban Economics. He received his B.A. in economics from ITAM in Mexico, his Ph.D. in Economics at Princeton University, and was previously an assistant professor at University of Toronto. He is a J-PAL and CEGA affiliate.

Source: https://are.berkeley.edu/users/marco-gonzalez-navarro

Lewis M. Fulton

Director, STEPS (Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways)

Lewis Fulton has worked internationally in the field of transportation, energy, and environment analysis and policy development for over 25 years. He is Director of the Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways Program (STEPS+) within the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis. There he leads a range of research activities around new vehicle technologies and new fuels, and how these can gain rapid acceptance in the market. He also coordinates research across five STEPS+ Centers: Energy Futures Center, the Sustainable Freight Center, the Plug-in Hybrid & Electric Vehicle Research Center, the 3 Revolutions Future Mobility Program, and the China Center for Energy and Transportation.

From 2007-2012 he was a Senior Transport Specialist with the International Energy Agency, Paris, as well as Division Head for Energy Technology Policy during 2011-2012. He returned to the IEA in 2007 after working there originally from 1999-2005. During 2006-2007 he worked in Kenya with the UN Environment Program, developing and implementing GEF-funded sustainable transport projects around the world. During the 1990s he also worked at the US Department of Energy for 4 years, and taught at the Independent University of Bangladesh and the University of Maryland.

Source: https://its.ucdavis.edu/people/lewis-fulton/

High Level Policy Panel on A Green New Deal for the World (1pm-2pm)

Chair: Demetrios Papathanasiou, Global Director, Energy and Extractives, Infrastructure VP, World Bank

OVERVIEW

There is growing convergence amongst influential thinkers that sustainable and inclusive interventions are among those most likely to deliver a resilient recovery from COVID-19 with associated job growth. The overarching need is for policies that can boost economic activity in the short term, while helping to shift incentives towards a better future that is resilient, inclusive, sustainable and efficient.

Nevertheless, the multiplicity of current social and economic challenges means that there are many competing priorities for governments to address, and all of this at a time when many countries are highly indebted and public finances are under severe strain. Neither is the investment climate for private investment all that encouraging, as the lack of liquidity puts existing PPP arrangements under pressure, and escalating risks affect investor appetite for new transactions.

Panelists will share insights on prospects for a green recovery and how developing economies can emerge from this crisis more sustainable and resilient than before.

***

SPEAKERS’ BIOS

Amb. Claver Gatete

Minister of Infrastructure, Government of Rwanda

Amb. Claver Gatete was appointed as the Minister of Infrastructure on 6 April 2018. Prior to this appointment, he served as Minister of Finance and Economic Planning since February 2013. He had previously served as the Governor of the National Bank of Rwanda (2011 to 2013), having previously served as its Deputy Governor. Amb. Gatete also served as Rwanda’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Iceland from November 2005 to December 2009. He is also currently a member of the Presidential Advisory Council.  Prior to that, Amb. Claver Gatete had served successively as the Secretary General and Secretary to the Treasury in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Personal Representative of the President on NEPAD Steering Committee in the Office of the President, Coordinator of the National African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), member of the APR National Commission; and Member of the NEPAD’s African Partnership Forum (APF) and the Director General for Social and Economic Affairs. He also worked with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) – Kigali-Rwanda, as a National Economist. 

Amb. Claver Gatete has held various positions on Key Boards of Directors including: Chairman of Rwanda Revenue Authority and School of Finance and Banking as Chairman; member of the Board of the National Bank of Rwanda; Chairman of National Privatization Technical Committee; and Vice-Chairman of Community Development Fund.  He also held positions in other key taskforce committees serving as Chairman of the National Treasury Management Committee and Co-Chair of Development Partners Coordination Group. 

Amb. Gatete holds a Masters in Agricultural Economics from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada (1993) and an undergraduate degree from the same University (1991). Upon completion of his undergraduate and postgraduate studies, Amb. Gatete worked in Canada as an Economist; Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, Statistics Canada, University of British Columbia and Algonquin College.

Source: https://live.worldbank.org/experts/claver-gatete

Dolf Gielen

Director, IRENA Innovation and Technology Center

 As Director of the IRENA Innovation and Technology Centre (IITC) since 2011, Dolf Gielen oversees the Agency’s work on advising member countries in the area of technology status and roadmaps, energy planning, cost and markets and innovation policy frameworks.

Before joining IRENA, Mr. Gielen was Chief of the Energy Efficiency and Policy Unit at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Vienna. In that capacity, he managed a number of large projects involving energy efficiency and renewable energy (including those in Sri Lanka, Ukraine and India). Previously, he was a Senior Energy Analyst in the Energy Technology Policy Division of the International Energy Agency, Paris.

Mr. Gielen has a PhD in Energy and Materials Modelling from the Technical University of Delft. He graduated with an MA in Environmental Sciences at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands.

Source: https://www.irena.org/seniormanagement

Laura Cozzi

Chief Energy Modeller, International Energy Agency

Laura Cozzi was appointed the Agency’s Chief Energy Modeller in 2018. As Chief Energy Modeller Ms. Cozzi oversees the Agency’s work on outlooks and forecasts and is in charge of overall consistency of modelling work and resulting messages. Ms. Cozzi is also Head of the Demand Outlook Division with responsibility of producing the annual World Energy Outlook, the IEA flagship publication. The Division produces medium to long term energy demand, efficiency, power generation, renewables and environmental analysis for the World Energy Outlook and other publications. Ms Cozzi joined the IEA in 1999, and has been leading several editions of the Outlook, and has been co-author of multiple editions of the report. Prior to joining the IEA, Ms. Cozzi worked for the Italian energy company ENI S.p.A. She holds a Master Degree in Environmental Engineering (from Polytechnic Milan) and a Master Degree in Energy and Environmental Economics (from Eni Corporate University).

Source: https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/b30eb57f-1d63-4045-b236-c270fa451a01/LauraCozziBiography.pdf

Will Cavendish

Global Digital Services Leader, Arup and former Director General of International Energy and Climate Change in the UK

 As Arup’s Global Digital Services Leader, I draw together the very best in technology, design and engineering to redefine the built environment with our clients.

Previously I was Strategy Lead, Applied at DeepMind, responsible for understanding the ground-breaking developments taking place in Artificial Intelligence, and working with key partners to apply them for public good in areas such as health and energy. Prior to this I was the Director General for Innovation, Growth and Technology at the Department of Health; Director General, International Energy and Climate Change at DECC, and Head of the Prime Minister’s Implementation Unit, working directly with David Cameron and Nick Clegg. 

I have wide-ranging experience achieving change in areas such as digital, health, education, international energy and climate change, cybersecurity, growth and innovation. When in government, I led the creation of the world's first network of What Works Centres, set up to provide proper evidence on effective uses of public money, and pioneered the use of transparency and crowdsourcing in policy making. 

I also served as a World Bank Economist; lectured at Oxford University and Imperial College; have a Doctorate in Economics; and was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath by the Queen in 2015.

Source: https://www.arup.com/our-firm/will-cavendish

W. Gyude Moore

Senior Policy Fellow, Center for Global Development and former Minister of Public Works, Liberia

W. Gyude Moore is a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development. He previously served as Liberia’s Minister of Public Works with oversight over the construction and maintenance of public infrastructure from December 2014 to January 2018.

Prior to that role, Moore served as Deputy Chief of Staff to President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Head of the President’s Delivery Unit (PDU). As Head of the PDU, his team monitored progress and drove delivery of the Public Sector Investment Program of Liberia—a program of over $1 billion in road, power, port infrastructure, and social programs in Liberia after the civil war. As one of the President’s trusted advisors, he also played a crucial role in supporting President Sirleaf as Liberia responded to the West Africa Ebola outbreak and shaped its post-Ebola outlook

At CGD, Moore’s research focus is around financing infrastructure in Africa and the changing landscape of development finance on the continent.  His research tracks the channels of private sources of finance, the rise of China and its expanding role in Africa, and Africa’s response to these changes. He currently serves on the Board of Advisors of the Master of Science in Foreign Service Program at Georgetown University. He holds a BS in Political Science from Berea College and an MS in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.

Source: https://www.cgdev.org/expert/w-gyude-moore

Lightning Talks in Pathways to Energy Decarbonization (2pm-3pm)

Chair: Maria Vagliasindi (Lead Economist, INF Practice Group)

OVERVIEW

Incredible advances in data, analytics and connectivity are enabling a range of new digital applications, able to identify who needs energy and deliver it at the right time, in the right place and at the lowest cost.  The electricity sector is at the heart of this transformation, where digitalization enables smart demand response, critical to providing the flexibility needed to integrate more generation from variable renewables, but also to deliver carbon emission reduction. Digitalization in energy intensive industries will enable demand response to reduce peak loads, to shed loads and to store energy in response to real-time energy prices or other conditions specified by the user.

PANELISTS

1.       Dharik S. Mallapragada, Research Scientist, MIT Energy Initiative

Topic:  The economics of storage

Background: based on paper

• "Long-run system value of battery energy storage in future grids with increasing wind and solar generation" Applied Energy, Volume 275, 2020 (with Nestor A. Sepulveda and Jesse D. Jenkins)   

2.       Prudence Dato, Researcher, Department of Business and Economics, University of Basel

Topic:  On welfare impact of DG/ smart grid such as the rebound effect of smart grids deployments can be welfare decreasing and even environmental harmful when fossil fuels still represent a key source of energy generation

Background: based on paper

• "Smart grids and renewable electricity generation by households” Energy Economics 86 (2020) (with Tunç Durmaz, Aude Pommeret)

3.       Jan Witajewski-Baltvilks, Associate Professor, University of Warsaw

Topic:  The challenges of just transition from coal

Background: based on paper

• "Low-carbon transition in a coal-producing country: A labour market perspective,” Energy Policy 2020 (with Jan Baran; Aleksander Szpor)

4.       Francesco Dolci, Scientific Officer, Joint Research Centre (JRC) - European Commission's Science Service

Topic: Green hydrogen transport cost assessment in the context of the new EU Hydrogen Strategy

Background: Not yet published work in EC-JRC

5.       Ranjit Deshmukh, Assistant Professor in Environmental Studies University of California Santa Barbara

Topic:  The challenges of renewable integration in India

Background: Based on the results of his work on MapRE platform, which enables the identification and valuation of spatially-explicit, cost-effective but environmentally and socially sustainable wind and solar resources (countries in eastern and southern Africa and in India).

6.       Jevgenijs Steinbuks, Economist, World Bank

Topic:  The challenges of decarbonization in Ukraine

Background: based on on-going work

***

SPEAKERS’ BIOS

Dharik Mallapragada

Research Scientist, MIT Energy Initiative

Dharik Mallapragada joined the MIT Energy Initiative in May 2018. Prior to MIT, Dharik worked at ExxonMobil Corporate Strategic Research, where he contributed to research on power systems modeling, life cycle assessment and also led a research program to study energy trends in developing countries. Through his Ph.D. and nearly five years of research experience in the chemicals and energy industry, Dharik has worked on a range of sustainability-focused research topics such as designing light-weight composite materials and carbon-efficient biofuel pathways, as well as developing novel tools for energy systems analysis. His research interests include the design of novel energy conversion processes and their integration into the energy system. At MIT, Dharik is working on advancing power systems modeling tools to study questions around renewables integration and economy-wide electrification.

Dharik holds a M.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University. He received a B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

Source: http://energy.mit.edu/profile/dharik-mallapragada/

Prudence Dato

Assistant Professor, University of Basel

Prudence Dato holds a PhD in Economics from Savoie Mont Blanc University (USMB) in France and a Master’s degree (PhD track) in environmental and resource economics from Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), France. He is currently a temporary teaching and research fellow at USMB and his main research interests are energy, environmental and resource economics. His PhD dissertation focuses on the transition to renewable energy and on investment in energy saving technologies with an interest in smart-grids, micro-grids, household behavior and in economic instruments that favor energy transition. Prudence Dato also has 10 years' consultancy experience working on climate change, energy and environmental issues.

Source: https://sites.google.com/view/prudencedato/accueil

Ranjit Deshmukh

Assistant Professor in Environmental Studies University of California Santa Barbara

Ranjit Deshmukh is an Assistant Professor in the Environmental Studies department at the University of California Santa Barbara. Ranjit’s research interests lie at the intersection of energy, environment, and economics, specifically in low carbon energy systems, clean energy access, and electricity markets. Prior to joining the University of California Santa Barbara, Ranjit was an ITRI-Rosenfeld postdoctoral fellow at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Ranjit holds a PhD in Energy and Resources from the University of California at Berkeley, master’s degrees in Engineering from Humboldt State University and University of Texas at Austin, and a bachelor’s degree from the Government College of Engineering Pune, India. He was a Siebel Scholar and a Link Energy fellow while at UC Berkeley and a Schatz Energy fellow at Humboldt State University.

Ranjit is broadly interested in low carbon energy systems and clean energy access. Specifically, his key interests include: 1) strategies, policies, and market mechanisms for renewable energy integration in electric power systems, 2) incorporating multiple techno-economic, social, and environmental criteria for sustainable energy system planning, 3) technologies and incentives for increasing access to clean energy services in developing regions and low income communities. Ranjit’s work has taken him to India, Indonesia, and several countries in Africa. In pursuing his academic and applied research, he works closely with both government and non-government stakeholders including regulators, electric utilities, government ministries, non-profit organizations, and local communities.

Source: https://www.es.ucsb.edu/ranjit-deshmukh

Jan Witajewski-Baltvilks

Associate Professor, University of Warsaw

Jan Witajewski-Baltvilksis  assistant professor at the Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw, Director of Warsaw Ecological Economics Centre and consultant at the World Bank. Since 2019 he is a lead author of IPCC 6th Assessment Report, chapter 16 (innovation and technology transfer). His research interests include growth, climate change and energy, labour, technological change and applied econometrics.  In 2015 he has received PhD from European University Institute, with his thesis supervised by Arpad Abraham and Ramon Marimon. 

Previously he obtained degrees from London School of Economics (BSc) and University of Cambridge (MPhil). In academic year (2011/12) he participated in European Doctoral Programme at London School of Economics where his advisor was Professor Francesco Caselli. Since 2018 he is the coordinator and lecturer of Advanced Microeconomics course (compulsory for Master students).

He also composes classical music (for piano, organs and choir).

Source: https://sites.google.com/site/witajewski/

Francesco Dolci

Research Scientist, Joint Research Centre (JRC) - European Commission's Science Service

Since 2014, Francesco Dolci has joined the European Commission Joint Research Centre as a Scientific Officer. He has worked mainly on technological monitoring and assessment of energy storage technologies with a special focus on hydrogen. Francesco holds a PhD in chemistry from the University of Turin (Italy). From 2004 until 2014  he worked several years as a researcher in the fields of catalysis and solid state chemistry, both in academia and industry.

Jevgenijs Steinbuks

Economist, Development Research Group

Jevgenijs Steinbuks is an Economist in the Sustainability and Infrastructure Team of the Development Research Group. His areas of expertise are in energy and environmental economics, industrial organization, and real estate and urban economics with a particular focus on households’ and firms’ investment problems. His current research focuses on sustainable resource and land use, electric power, and energy demand and efficiency. Dr. Steinbuks has extensive experience with academia, public sector and international institutions.
Before joining the World Bank, he worked as a research economist at the Center for Global Trade Analysis, the Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University; the Electricity Policy Research Group, University of Cambridge; the Enterprise Analysis Unit at the World Bank, and Credit Research Center at Georgetown University. He also spent a number of years with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia, working primarily on Latvian economic integration in the EU and WTO. Dr. Steinbuks taught a number of graduate and undergraduate courses in economics at the University of Cambridge, Miami University, the George Washington University, and the University of Latvia. His research is published in peer-reviewed academic journals and is regularly presented at international conferences and workshops. Jevgenijs Steinbuks has his PhD in Economics from the George Washington university.

Lighting Talks in Pathways to Transport Decarbonization (2pm-3pm)

Chair: Cecilia Briceno (Lead Economist, Transport Global Knowledge & Expertise)

OVERVIEW

Decarbonizing transport requires changing the existing paradigm in policy technologies and investment. On the investment front prioritization of investment in public and non‐motorized transport, including maintenance, improvements and extensions to public transit networks, and improvements to walking and cycling infrastructure is required. On the policy side, use of taxes that reflect the societal costs and the cost of environmental damage incurred by burning fuel influence passenger and freight mobility choices is of crucial importance. People may reduce discretionary car trips, car-pool, purchase more efficient vehicles and drive more efficiently, choose alternative transport modes or not take trips at all.

Intelligent transport systems are using digital technologies in all modes of transport to improve safety, reliability and efficiency. Across all transport modes, digital technologies are helping to improve energy efficiency and reduce maintenance costs. Digital technologies could fundamentally transform how people and goods are moved, with significant impacts on transport demand and on the related energy consumption and environmental impacts. Big data analytics optimize route planning and can help all transport modes to reduce fuel use. Yet, the transport sector is still characterized by some inertia to adopt such innovative solutions, so that the key challenges will be to identify the best way to incentivize and finance the low carbon transition.

PANELISTS

1.       Andres Gomez-Lobo, Associate Professor in Economics, University of Chile

Topic:  Public Transportation and ride-hailing

Background: Based on the results of his work

• "Transit reforms in intermediate cities of Colombia: An ex-post evaluation” Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice – 2020, Vol. 132
• "Does ride-hailing increase or decrease vehicle kilometers traveled (VKT)? A simulation approach for Santiago de Chile” International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, Volume 14, 2020 - Issue 3
• http://www.fen.uchile.cl/es/academicos-investigacion/directorio-de-academicos/detalle/andres-gomez-lobo

2.       Joshua Linn

Topic:  Effects of passenger vehicle taxation and fuel economy standards on technology adoption and consumer well-being.

Background: based on

• The Effect of Owning a Car on Travel Behavior: Evidence from the Beijing License Plate Lottery (with Jun Yang, Antung Anthony Liu, and Ping Qin). Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, vol. 99 (2020): 134-57.
• Interactions between Climate and Local Air Pollution Policies: The Case of European Passenger Cars. Journal of the Association for Environmental and Resource Economics, vol. 6 (2019): 709-40.

3.       Joanna Moody, Research Manager, MIT Mobility Initiative

Topic:  Use of new transportation technologies to challenge the reliance on private vehicles

Background: based on

• Wang, S.,  J. Zhao. “What prompts the adoption of car restriction policies among Chinese cities?”. International Journal of Sustainable Transportation
• http://www.mit.edu/~jcmoody/pubs.shtml

4.       Fan Zhang, Senior Economist, World Bank

Topic:  On the incentives for Electric Vehicles

Background: based on

• "The Role of Government in the Market for Electric Vehicles: Evidence from China” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper (2020) (with Shanjun Li, Xianglei Zhu, Yiding Ma and Hui Zhou)

5.       Kilian Heilmann, Research Economist and Data Scientist, Lyft

Topic:  Digitalization of trucks & emissions

Background: based on

• "Information Frictions, Load Matching, and Route Efficiency in the Trucking Industry”
• https://sites.google.com/view/kilianheilmann

6.       Teevrat Garg, Assistant Professor of Economics, School of Global Policy & Strategy at the University of California - San Diego

Topic:  The trade-off between new investment in highways and deforestation, inertia of physical network decisions

• Asher, Sam and Paul Novosad (2020) “The Ecological Impact of Transportation Infrastructure,” Economic Journal, Vol. 130, Issue 629, July 2020, pp. 1173-1199

***

SPEAKERS’ BIOS

Andrés Gómez-Lobo

Associate Professor of Economics, University of Chile

Andrés Gómez-Lobo holds a B.A. degree in Economics from Catholic University of Chile, a Master of Arts in Environmental and Resource Economics and a PhD in Economics from University College London. He is currently Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Chile. He has been Director of the Santiago Metro (2008-2010), Chief Advisor to the Minister of Transport and Telecommunications (2008-2010), and Minister of Transport and Telecommunications of Chile (2014-2017). Besides his academic work, Dr. Gómez-Lobo is a national and international consultant in natural monopoly regulation, competition and transport policies.

Joshua Linn

Associate Professor, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Maryland

Josh Linn is an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Maryland and a senior fellow at Resources for the Future. His research centers on the effects of environmental policies and economic incentives for new technologies in the transportation, electricity, and industrial sectors. His transportation research assesses passenger vehicle taxation and fuel economy standards in the United States and Europe. He has examined the effects of Beijing’s vehicle ownership restrictions on travel behavior, labor supply, and fertility.

His work on the electricity sector has compared the effectiveness of cap and trade and alternative policy instruments in promoting new technology and reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and local air pollutants. Recent studies have compared the roles of natural gas prices and environmental regulation in explaining coal mine closures and the shift away from coal-fired generation in the United States. He has examined the implications of low-cost storage and renewables for reducing electricity sector emissions.

Linn’s research on the manufacturing sector has investigated the roles of energy prices in driving the adoption of energy-saving technology and the effects of carbon pricing on industrial competitiveness. He has published in leading general interest and field journals in environmental, energy, and health economics.

Linn was a senior economist at the Council of Economic Advisers from 2014–2015. He is serving on a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committee on light-duty fuel economy. He is a co-editor for the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. He received a BA in Astronomy and Physics from Yale in 2000 and a PhD in Economics from MIT in 2005.

Source: https://sites.google.com/umd.edu/joshualinn

Joanna Moody

Research Manager, MIT Mobility Initiative

Joanna Moody is the Research Program Manager for the MIT Energy Initiative's Mobility Systems Center: an industry-funded research consortium focused on the complex interactions between advanced technologies, alternative fuels, infrastructure, service models, consumer choice, and government policy and how they may shape the future of passenger and goods movement. Joanna's research uses econometrics and psychometrics, paired with structural equation modeling, to explore the interactions between policies, attitudes, and individual travel behavior. Joanna's research focuses on how individual decisions by key stakeholders (policymakers and consumers) will shape the use of new transportation technologies and services that have the potential to challenge the existing paradigm of reliance on gasoline-powered, single-occupancy privately-owned vehicles, and how these impacts vary across international urban contexts.

Source: http://www.mit.edu/~jcmoody/

Fan Zhang

Senior Economist, World Bank

Fan Zhang is a Senior Economist in the Infrastructure Chief Economist’s Office at World Bank Group. Prior to that, she worked in the Chief Economist’s Office of South Asia Region and in the Energy and Extractives Global Practice at World Bank Group. She has led both lending and advisory programs and published in the areas of energy and environmental economics, economic growth, transportation policy and climate change. Prior to joining the World Bank Group, she was an Assistant Professor of Energy Economics and Policy at Pennsylvania State University. She has a PhD from Harvard University.

Kilian Heilmann

Research Economist and Data Scientist, Lyft

Kilian Heilmann is a Research Economist and Data Scientist working at Lyft. He is interested in urban and transportation economics as well as international trade, with a special focus on remote sensing. At Uber Technologies in San Francisco, he built a research program for the Uber Freight organization. Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Dornsife Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) at the University of Southern California. He obtained my PhD in Economics from the University of California, San Diego in 2017.

Source: https://sites.google.com/view/kilianheilmann

Teevrat Garg

Assistant Professor of Economics, School of Global Policy & Strategy at the University of California - San Diego

Teevrat Garg is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the School  of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California - San Diego. His research is at the intersection of environmental and development economics with an emphasis on the role of public policy and institutions in helping the poor cope with environmental changes from climate change to water and air pollution. In recent years, he has conducted research in India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nepal and Mozambique. He is a faculty affiliate of the Center for Global Effective Action (CEGA) and research affiliate at the Institute for Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn, Germany.

Prior to joining University of California - San Diego, Professor Garg was a postdoctoral fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He received a B.A. in Economics and a B.S. in Mathematics from Lafayette College in 2010, and a PhD. in Applied Economics and Management from Cornell University in 2015.

Source: https://www.teevratgarg.com/

Jointly organized by the World Bank’s Infrastructure Vice Presidency and the University of California, Berkeley, the second annual #Infra4Dev conference, "Decarbonizing Infrastructure," aims to explore the ways in which investments in and regulation of infrastructure are helping to mitigate the long-term effects of climate change, especially for those living in poverty in low- and middle-income countries.

• Opening Remarks by Makhtar Diop, Vice President for Infrastructure, World Bank and Ted Miguel, Director of the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA), UC Berkeley
• First Keynote Address by Michael Grubb, Professor of Energy and Climate Change, University College London
• Session 1: Pathways to Decarbonization & Digital Innovation in Energy
• Session 2: Pathways to Decarbonization & Digital Innovation in Transport
• Second and Third Keynote Addresses by Catherine Wolfram, Professor of Business Administration, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley and Sol Hsiang, Professor of Public Policy, UC Berkeley
• Session3: Lead Policy Panel: A Green New Deal for the World 
• Parallel Talks 1: Lightning Talks: Energy
• Parallel Talks 2: Lightning Talks: Transport