This is the third meeting of the Energy Forum, established in 2015 in collaboration with Tsinghua University and the University of Southern California.
The Hertie School’s Helmut K. Anheier, Christian Flachsland and Lion Hirth debated climate policy with fellow Energy Forum researchers and top California experts including former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Energy Forum on 5-6 October in Los Angeles.
The Energy Forum is a cooperation of three leading global public policy schools: Tsinghua University (Beijing, China), Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California (Los Angeles, USA) and the Hertie School (Berlin, Germany). It brings together leading scholars in energy and climate policy research as well as policy practitioners.
The recent meeting in Los Angeles is the third forum, after meetings in Beijing (2015) and Berlin (2016). The latest research on a wide range of pressing energy and climate policy issues was presented and discussed with Californian policy and business practitioners. This included hot topics such as China’s carbon emission trading scheme that was originally scheduled to launch this year (but it seems increasingly likely that this deadline will not be met) and the compensation of those who might lose from climate action, such as coal miners – an issue that seems more important than ever since the election of president Trump.
Top former and current government officials attended the forum, such as Mary Nichols, Chair of California’s Air Resources Board, an authority that oversees and shapes much of the state’s climate and energy policy, and former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose Schwarzenegger Institute hosted the event. Schwarzenegger has remained deeply involved in the U.S. energy policy discussions after completing his term as governor of California.
Founded in 2015 in the lead-up to the Conference of the Parties (COP) in Paris, Energy Forum researchers have not only engaged and informed policymakers in each world region and created new academic networks, but developed several joint outputs. These include a joint policy input to the T-20 process in the context of the German G-20 presidency, and a peer-reviewed publication on international climate policy coordination.
More information and photos from the Forum are available on the USC Schwarzenegger Institute of State and Global Policy website.
