Stanford University

Climate

PESD Annual Review Meeting

The PESD's 2007 Annual Review Meeting, which will be held November 13-14, 2007 at Stanford University, provides the opportunity to take a look at major issues in the world's energy system, as well as PESD's current research and plans for the future.

PESD is a growing international research program that works on the political economy of energy. We study the political, legal, and institutional factors that affect outcomes in global energy markets. Much of our research has been based on field studies in developing countries including China, India, Brazil, South Africa, and Mexico.

At present, PESD is active in four major areas: climate change policy, energy and development, the emerging global natural gas market, and the role of national oil companies.

We have made available the agenda with more detail on the event. The substance of the workshop will begin at 1pm on Tuesday, November 13, with an overview of the program. Then we will focus the rest of the time on a few main research topics, discussing the current state of research for each as well as our plans for the future. We also anticipate discussion of areas where PESD can better collaborate with other institutions. The meeting ends at 1pm on Wednesday, November 14.

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Schwab Center
680 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6090

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Cohen leads Google.org course on global poverty and development

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In September Google.org launched the first of three courses on its main areas of philanthropic activity--Global Development, Global Health, and Climate Change. Joshua Cohen, director of the Program on Global Justice (PGJ) at FSI Stanford and professor of political science, philosophy, and law, is moderating the 10-week course, which focuses on understanding poverty and development at the global, national, local, and personal levels.

"Google has an extraordinary collection of creative employees," says Cohen. "This course on global poverty aims to enlist their energetic creativity in addressing one of our most commanding moral challenges."

The course on global poverty and development meets once a week at a Google headquarters. Each two-hour session features guest speakers on development-related issues such as education and health, equitable financial markets, globalization, and population mobility. On October 3, Rosamond L. Naylor, director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment (FSE) at FSI Stanford, co-taught a session on productive agriculture for the 21st century with Frank Rijsberman, Google.org director of water and climate adaptation issues.

Cohen opens each session, synthesizing points from previous weeks, and then moderates the hour-long discussion between guest speakers and Google employees that follows the speaker presentations. The 200-person capacity of the room is superseded by participation from employees at more than 20 remote locations. On October 3, Google.org Executive Director Larry Brilliant joined the discussion as well.

In a related collaboration, Cohen may also be leading a small-group seminar, "Global Poverty 2.0," at Stanford for Google employees as well as graduate students and colleagues. Global Poverty 2.0 is expected to meet on Friday afternoons and draw on readings from history, sociology, political science, economics, and philosophy. Students would be required to make one presentation and also to submit a 3,000-word project proposal for dealing with some aspect of the large problem of global poverty.

Google.org is the philanthropic arm of Google and the umbrella for its commitment to devote employee time and one percent of Google's profits and equity toward philanthropy.

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Security and the Growth of Nuclear Power

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This summer the DOE Energy Information Agency released its study of the McCain/Lieberman Climate Stewardship bill, concluding that the largest single effect of these carbon controls would be the construction of 145 gigawatts of new U.S. nuclear capacity by 2030, more than doubling the existing 100 gigawatts. From the perspective of the early 1990's, today's resurgent interest in nuclear energy may appear surprising. This seminar will review what changed over the last 20 years that returned nuclear energy to broad public attention today, and will discuss the range of possible nuclear energy futures and their implications for security and the environment.

Per F. Peterson is Professor and previous chair of the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his BS in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno, in 1982. After working at Bechtel on high-level radioactive waste processing from 1982 to 1985, he received a MS degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley in 1986 and a PhD in 1988. He was a JSPS Fellow at the Tokyo Institute of Technology from 1989 to 1990 and a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator from 1990 to 1995. He is past chairman of the Thermal Hydraulics Division (1996-1997) and a Fellow (2002) of the American Nuclear Society, a recipient of the Fusion Power Associates Excellence in Fusion Engineering Award (1999), and has served as editor for three journals.

Professor Peterson's work focuses on applications in energy and environmental systems, including passive reactor safety systems, inertial fusion energy, and nuclear materials management and security. His research interests focus on thermal hydraulics, heat and mass transfer, nonproliferation and nuclear security. He is author of over 100 archival journal articles and over 130 conference publications on these topics.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Per Peterson Professor of Nuclear Engineering Speaker University of California, Berkeley
Seminars

Sam Headon

616 Serra St. E415
Encina Hall East
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
616 Serra St. E415
Encina Hall East
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-1714
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Sam earned his LLB and BA at the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. Sam practiced at Clayton Utz, an Australian law firm, in their Corporate Advisory- Energy & Utilities department, specializing in energy regulation and asset finance. In 2006, he accepted a position as an associate at Clifford Chance in London, specializing in all aspects of finance, energy and environmental law in the firm's International Environmental and Climate Trading team.

In 2007, Sam was accepted as a SPILS fellow at Stanford Law School where he is currently preparing a thesis on international climate change and emissions trading regimes.

Courting Disaster: The Fight for Oil, Water and a Healthy Planet

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Global population increases, surging economic growth in new economies, and an unabated appetite for fossil fuels all are driving huge demand for the world's natural resources. At the same time, climate change is upon us.

Add to that instability across the Middle East--the world's oil epicenter--and the growth of extremism and international terrorism.

The complexities of today's world are confounding and frightening, but there are still reasons for hope:

-Groundbreaking research on alternatives to fossil fuels

-Breakthroughs in energy efficiency

-Progress in addressing threats to ocean and freshwater resources

-Increased understanding of terrorism, poverty, and extremism--threats to the stability of current energy sources

In the face of such extraordinary circumstances, how do we understand the complex interconnections among these issues? What can we do as individuals and as a nation to address them? And what is the way forward when violence and the threat of terrorism put us on a razor's edge?

Sponsored by the 2007 Roundtable at Stanford and Stanford Reunion Homecoming.

Maples Pavilion
655 Campus Drive
Stanford, CA 94305

Carlos Watson (Moderator) Former CNN Political Analyst Moderator
Thomas Friedman Columnist, New York Times Panelist
Pamela Matson Dean, School of Earth Sciences, Stanford University Panelist
Stephen Breyer U.S. Supreme Court Justice Panelist
General John Abizaid Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution Panelist
John Hennessy (Host) President, Stanford University Speaker
Panel Discussions

Power & Prosperity: New Dynamics, New Dilemmas

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FSI's annual International Conference and Dinner

Join us for an invigorating day of addresses, debates and discussions of changing patterns of power and prosperity in the international system.

Plenary I - Asia's Triple Rise: How China, India, and Japan Will Shape Our Future

  • China's Historic Rise
  • India's Ascent
  • Japan's Resurgence

Plenary II - Critical Connections: Faces of Security in the 21st Century

  • Stabilizing Iraq: the Regional and International Stakes
  • Assessing and Addressing Nuclear Risks
  • Innovative Solutions: Food Security and the Environment

Interactive Panel Discussions

  • Autocratic Hegemons and the National Interests: Dealing with China, Iran, and Russia
  • Global Health Care: New Initiatives, New Imperatives
  • Nuclear Power Without Nuclear Proliferation?
  • Growing Pains: Growth and Tension in China
  • A Changing Continent? Opportunities and Challenges for European Expansion
  • Food Security, Climate Change, and Civil Conflict
  • Faces of Energy Security
  • Overcoming Barriers to Conflict Resolution
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Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center

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FSI International Conference

David Hults

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David Hults is a Research Affiliate at Stanford University's Program on Energy and Sustainable Development (PESD).  His areas of academic interest include the role of energy in the developing world, climate change, and Latin American law.  From 2008 to 2009, David served as a Postdoctoral Fellow at PESD.  David received a J.D. with distinction from Stanford Law School in 2008, where he was Senior Editor for the Stanford Law Review and Senior Articles Editor for the Stanford Journal of International Law.  Before coming to Stanford, David worked on Latin American economic issues at the U.S. Department of State for more than three years.  David previously earned a B.A. in International Studies from the University of Florida and an M.A. in International Relations from Yale University. 

Conservation of Crop Genetic Resources in the Face of Climate Change

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Agriculture is the human enterprise most dependent on climate and natural resources, and is thus the sector that has the most to gain or lose from short- or long-run changes in the level or variability of climate. A growing literature seeks to understand the probable effects of climate change on agriculture, and improvements in our understanding of climate dynamics and crop response has begun to reduce some of the uncertainties inherent in projecting future impacts on agriculture. Nevertheless, there has been scant research conducted on the climate impacts on various crops and agroecosystems of central importance to the global poor. Furthermore, much of the existing literature assumes that farmers will automatically adapt to climate change and thereby lessen many of its potential negative impacts, taking for granted the monumental past efforts at the collection, preservation, and utilization of plant genetic resources on which much of farmer adaptation has historically depended.

Given potentially large changes in global temperature, regional precipitation patterns, and extreme weather events, we believe it is dangerous to assume that adaptation of cultivars will happen automatically. Extensive crop breeding that relies on access to genetic resources will almost certainly be required for crop adaptation under conditions of global climate change. Furthermore, substantial knowledge and insight is needed to gauge what types of diversity now exist in the gene banks, and what will be needed in the future. Fundamental questions remain to be addressed, for example: How are regional patterns of climate expected to change in the future, and how will these changes affect agro-ecosystems around the world? There are also several strategic investment issues to consider--which traits, which crops and which regions should be central to strategic decisions on ex situ genetic conservation? What steps should be taken to conserve the genetic diversity of the important but neglected minor crops where the number of accessions is currently low? Answers to these questions will be critical for promoting food security and ensuring human survival, and to date have received little or no attention in the scientific literature or broader policy arena.

This conference will seek to answer three main questions:

1) What and where are the largest threats to agro-ecosystems under future climate change? Here we will seek to identify both the nature and the location of the largest probable threats, a topic that to date has not been systematically undertaken for certain areas of interest.

2) Taken individually and together, what do these threats imply for crop genetic diversity on a regional or global level? I.e. which traits, which crops and which regions appear central to strategic decisions on ex situ genetic conservation?

3) What is the current state of genetic conservation with respect to these threats, and what does this imply about the sequencing of future efforts at ex situ conservation focus? For example, are there a set of minor crops important to food security that are both poorly represented in the gene banks and under great threat from future climate change?

Particular attention will be paid to those crops and cropping systems on which food insecure populations currently depend, and who would be least able to adapt in the absence of concerted public action to the contrary. We expect that this effort will be the first serious attempt to link crop genetic resource conservation to climate change and variability.

» A news article on recent investments being made by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, decisions which were informed by the Bellagio meeting.

Bellagio, Italy

Conferences
Climate and Agriculture: Models, Impacts, and Adaptation Strategies

Mark C. Thurber

Program on Energy and Sustainable Development
616 Jane Stanford Way
Encina Hall East, Rm E412
Stanford, CA 94305

(650) 724-9709 (650) 724-1717
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Mark C. Thurber is Associate Director of the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development (PESD) at Stanford University, where he studies and teaches about energy and environmental markets and policy. Dr. Thurber has written and edited books and articles on topics including global fossil fuel markets, climate policy, integration of renewable energy into electricity markets, and provision of energy services to low-income populations.

Dr. Thurber co-edited and contributed to Oil and Governance: State-owned Enterprises and the World Energy Supply  (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and The Global Coal Market: Supplying the Major Fuel for Emerging Economies (Cambridge University Press, 2015). He is the author of Coal (Polity Press, 2019) about why coal has thus far remained the preeminent fuel for electricity generation around the world despite its negative impacts on local air quality and the global climate.

Dr. Thurber teaches a course on energy markets and policy at Stanford, in which he runs a game-based simulation of electricity, carbon, and renewable energy markets. With Dr. Frank Wolak, he also conducts game-based workshops for policymakers and regulators. These workshops explore timely policy topics including how to ensure resource adequacy in a world with very high shares of renewable energy generation.

Dr. Thurber has previous experience working in high-tech industry. From 2003-2005, he was an engineering manager at a plant in Guadalajara, México that manufactured hard disk drive heads. He holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and a B.S.E. from Princeton University.

Associate Director for Research at PESD
Social Science Research Scholar
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