Smart Green Cities: New Technologies, New Strategies, New Practices
Focus
In 2008, for the first time a majority of the world's population lived in cities. Rapidly rising standards of living and migration are contributing to an unprecedented worldwide surge in urbanization--in China alone, if trends continue, by 2025 more than 220 cities will each have more than one million inhabitants. The explosive growth of cities around the Pacific has widespread implications for energy use and has led to the demand for cities to become both smart and green.
But while billions of dollars of investments are pouring into urban energy solutions, and around the Pacific "low-carbon cities" and "eco-cities" are moving center stage, there are enormous challenges (and opportunities) facing the effective application of information technologies (IT), other innovative technologies and industrial growth.
The intersection of IT and environmental sustainability on the urban scale will require a complex integration of expertise, tools, and know-how from multiple disciplines--from building design and real estate development, to mobility and water systems, IT hardware and software, and energy providers. Although innovations in strategies and implementation are evolving quickly in pockets of excellence around the globe, early results have been highly uneven. Frameworks for understanding and analysis are still fragmented, innovative design and implementation rapidly changing, and best practices have yet to be defined.
Purpose
Led by SPRIE at Stanford University, this conference aims to gather an elite group of experts, decision makers, and thought leaders from across disciplines and geographical boundaries to focus on smart green cities around the Pacific. Participants will:
- Pursue a deeper understanding of the complex interactions among the key drivers that impact the extent that cities are green and smart
- Focus on core challenges of capitalizing on opportunities and overcoming obstacles--technological, economic, behavioral or political
- Explore what innovations in strategy or practice are leading to positive outcomes, including human livability, financial viability, economic vitality, and environmental sustainability
- Discuss implications for the evolution of markets and development of industries
- Lay the groundwork for future actions, such as industry strategies, research agendas, and policy recommendations
Participants
"Smart Green Cities" will invite a select group of government, business, and academic leaders from the United States and Asia for two days of expert presentations and fruitful discussion at Stanford University. The summit will enable participants to better lead to improved strategy, action, and outcomes for building the next generation of smart green cities.
Agenda
Agenda is preliminary and not all speakers are confirmed. Please download below
Sponsors
Many thanks to our sponsors for making this event possible.
Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR)
John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Building
366 Galvez Street
Stanford, CA
Smart Green Cities in Korea
About the talk:
Since 2008, the Republic of Korea has pursued a "Green Growth" policy as a way of addressing climate change and at the same time achieving economic growth. As a result, various green infrastructure projects have been taking place not only at the central government levels but also city levels.
Seoul Metropolitan City and Incheon City, for example, have already made significant progress by transforming themselves into Smart Green Cities. While current developments are being driven by the city governments, it is expected there will be ample opportunities for investments from the private sector, particularly in the fields of both energy technologies and information technologies.
Particular focus will be given to the areas of transportation, buildings, and water and waste management where the combination of "green" and IT technologies will be numerous.
About the speaker:
Suh-Yong Chung is Associate Professor in the Division of International Studies at Korea University and is an international expert on sustainable development law and policy. His research covers various emerging issues in the environment and sustainable development including climate change both at global and regional level. His most recent works focus on internationalization of Green Growth policy, post-2010 climate change regime formation, and regional environmental institution building in Northeast Asia.
He is a member of the Compliance Committee of the UN Basel Convention, and has participated in various activities of various international organizations. He has also advised for the Korean Government on the issues of climate change and sustainable development. In 2009, he advised for the Seoul Metropolitan City government on the C40 (Climate 40) Summit Meeting.
Professor Chung holds degrees in law and international relations from Seoul National University, the London School of Economics and Stanford Law School. He was a researcher at Shorenstein APARC and has continuously been involved in its activities as the Secretary General of the Stanford APARC Forum in Korea.
Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room
Using Economics to Confront Climate Change
PESD Director Frank Wolak will be among a number of speakers participating at Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research's Policy Forum - "Using Economics to Confront Climate Change."
Frank will be moderating a discussion of difficult challenges posed by the rapidly rising use of coal in India and China, and challenges to trade policy as studied by PESD researchers Richard Morse, Mark Thurber, and Jeremy Carl.
Bechtel Conference Center
Frank Wolak
Stanford University
Economics Department
579 Jane Stanford Way Stanford, CA 94305-6072
Website: https://fawolak.org/
Frank A. Wolak is a Professor in the Department of Economics at Stanford University. His fields of specialization are Industrial Organization and Econometric Theory. His recent work studies methods for introducing competition into infrastructure industries -- telecommunications, electricity, water delivery and postal delivery services -- and on assessing the impacts of these competition policies on consumer and producer welfare. He is the Chairman of the Market Surveillance Committee of the California Independent System Operator for electricity supply industry in California. He is a visiting scholar at University of California Energy Institute and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).
Professor Wolak received his Ph.D. and M.S. from Harvard University and his B.A. from Rice University.
CURC Fall General Membership Meeting
PESD research associate Richard K. Morse will be presenting "The Real Drivers of CCS in China and Implications for Climate Policy" at the Coal Utilization Research Council's Fall 2009 General Membership Meeting. Richard's presentation will reflect the research and publication of PESD's Working Paper #88.
Richard's CCS technology collaborative briefing is from 2:15PM to 2:30PM at the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel
8:30AM to 12:30PM
Capitol Visitors Center
(Below the East Plaza of the Capital Building)
Room SVC 209
1:00PM to 3:30PM
L'Enfant Plaza Hotel
Washington, D.C. 20024
Stanford Magazine Highlights REAP's Success in Influencing Policymakers
Anemia and malnutrition stunt the cognitive development of children in poor, rural areas of China. A Stanford-PRC research team led by FSI Senior Fellow Scott Rozelle, co-director of the Rural Education Action Program (REAP), found answers to help give millions of kids a better future. And Beijing is already taking action.
Ambassador Stephen W. Bosworth discusses North Korea policy at Shorenstein APARC
Ambassador Stephen W. Bosworth, the U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy, spoke March 4 at Shorenstein APARC to members of the Stanford community and invited guests. Bosworth had just returned from a round of consultations the previous week with foreign counterparts in Beijing, Seoul, and Tokyo.
In his off-the-record remarks at Shorenstein APARC, Bosworth reviewed the North Korean nuclear weapons problem since his appointment as Special Representative a year ago. He discussed recent developments, including his own visit to Pyongyang in December 2009, and noted his talks with his Six Party Talks counterparts. The Six Party Talks are hosted by the People's Republic of China, and include the United States, South Korea, Japan, Russia. These talks are aimed at persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons development in exchange for security guarantees and a lifting of international sanctions.
Ambassador Bosworth is concurrently dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. A former career diplomat, he served as U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines and South Korea. During this visit to Stanford, he also consulted with Stanford policy experts, including George P. Shultz, the Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution; William J. Perry, the Michael and Barbara Berberian Professor at FSI and Engineering; and Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow Michael H. Armacost.
Strict Liability for Medical Malpractice? The Impact of Increasing Malpractice Liability on Obstetrician Behavior in Taiwan
The extent and existence of "defensive medicine" -- excessive medical care to defend a physician against malpractice claims -- is a perennial subject of both policy and academic debate. For example, malpractice liability and associated defensive medicine are among the most-cited reasons for escalating health-care spending in the United States.
In this colloquium, Dr. Brian Chen will present results from his research investigating the extent of defensive medicine in Taiwan. He studies the impact of a series of court rulings in Taiwan that increased physicians’ liability risks, and a subsequent amendment to the law that reversed the courts’ rulings, on physicians’ test-ordering behavior and propensity to perform Caesarean sections. He finds that physicians faced with higher malpractice pressure increased laboratory tests as expected, but unexpectedly reduced Caesarean sections. (The reduction in Caesarean deliveries may be due to the fact that liability risks were more closely aligned with physicians’ standard of care after the court rulings.) After the law was amended to negate the court decisions, physicians reversed their previous behavior by reducing laboratory tests and increasing Caesarean deliveries.
This pattern of behavior is highly suggestive of the existence of defensive medicine among physicians in Taiwan. In other words, by studying physicians' response to legal changes in Taiwan, we find that greater malpractice liability may, under certain circumstances, prompt physicians to perform more services without necessarily improving patient health.
Dr. Brian Chen recently completed his Ph.D. in Business Administration in the Business and Public Policy Group at the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley. He received a Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School in 1997, and graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1992.
Philippines Conference Room
Brian Chen
Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, Room E-301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Dr. Brian Chen is currently a visiting scholar with the Asia Health Policy Program and Center for East Asian Studies at Stanford University. He was recently Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center's 2009-2010 postdoctoral fellow in Comparative Health Policy. As a visiting scholar, Dr. Chen will conduct collaborative research about health of the elderly and chronic disease in China.
As an applied economist, Chen’s research focuses on the impact of incentives in health care organizations on provider and patient behavior. For his dissertation, Chen empirically examined how vertical integration and prohibition against self-referrals affected physician prescribing behavior. His job market paper was selected for presentation at the American Law and Economics Association’s Annual Meeting, the Academy of Management, the Canadian Law and Economics Association, the Conference on Empirical Legal Studies, and the First Annual Conference on Empirical Health Law and Policy at Georgetown Law Center in 2009. The paper was also nominated for best paper based on a dissertation at the Academy of Management.
Chen comes to the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center not only with a multidisciplinary law and economics background, but also with an international perspective from having lived and worked in Taiwan, Japan, and France. He has a particularly intimate knowledge of the Taiwanese health care system from his experience as an assistant to the hospital administrator at a medical college in Taiwan.
During his past residence as a postdoctoral fellow with the Asia Health Policy Program, Chen conducted empirical research on cost containment policies in Taiwan and Japan and how those policies impacted provider behavior. His work also contributed to the program’s research activities on comparative health systems and health service delivery in the Asia-Pacific, a theme that encompasses the historical evolution of health policies; the role of the private sector and public-private partnerships; payment incentives and their impact on patients and providers; organizational innovation, contracting, and soft budget constraints; and chronic disease management and service coordination for aging populations.
Dr. Brian Chen recently completed his Ph.D. in Business Administration in the Business and Public Policy Group at the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley. He received a Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School in 1997, and graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1992.
At the Crossroads of Modernization: China and Russia
AGENDA
8:50-9:00 Welcome Remarks by Christer Prusiainen and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss
9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. "Political Transformation in Russia"
Chair: Linda Jakobson, Senior Fellow, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Paper Presenter: Christer Pursiainen, the Council on Baltic States
Discussant: Dr. Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, Deputy Director, CDDRL, Stanford University
10:00-11:00 a.m. "Political Transformation in China"
Chair: Linda Jakobson, Senior Fellow, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Paper Presenter: Minxin Pei, Professor of Government, Claremont McKenna College
Discussant: Kevin O'Brien, Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkley
11:00-11:15 a.m. Coffee Break
11:15 a.m. -12:15 p.m. "Chinese Foreign Policy in the New Era"
Chair: Christer Pursiainen, the Council on Baltic States
Paper Presenter: Sergei Medvedev, Professor, Moscow Higher School of Economics
Discussant: Steven Fish, Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
12:15-13:15 p.m. Lunch (Outside the Conference Room)
13:15-14:15: "Russia Foreign Policy in the New Era"
Chair: Christer Pursiainen, the Council on Baltic States
Paper Presenter: Linda Jakobson, Senior Fellow, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Discussant: Tom Fingar, Oksenberg/Rohlen Distinguished Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University
14:15-15:15 p.m. "Social Stratification in China since Reform"
Chair: Minxin Pei, Professor Claremont McKenna College
Paper Presenter: Dr. Li Chunling, Professor, Institute of Sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Discussant: Andrew Walder, Denise O'Leary and Kent Thiry Professor of Sociology, Stanford University
15:15-15:30 p.m. Coffee Break
15:30-16:30 p.m. "Social Stratification in Russia"
Chair: Minxin Pei, Professor, Claremont McKenna College
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room