Climate change, a central focus of the environmental law center’s work, is the key environmental issue of our time. To formulate climate policy, we need to address some fundamental questions: What are the economic and social impacts of climate change? What forces drive innovative technological responses? How do existing institutions cope or fail to cope with climate change? How do we deal with the inevitable gaps in knowledge when making policy?
Within CLEE, the Climate and Energy Policy Institute (CEPI) provides an interdisciplinary forum for research on these aspects of climate policy. The Berkeley campus provides an ideal setting for exploring these issues, given its premier standing in the social sciences, engineering, and climate science. In particular, CEPI has a strong link with the Energy and Resources Group (ERG). CEPI draws on all of these campus strengths, as well as the resources of the environmental law center and other Berkeley Law research centers. Some of CEPI’s research interests are the water-related effects of climate change – which are particularly critical in California – decision making in the presence of scientific and economic uncertainty regarding climate impacts, connections between climate change and social justice, and the challenges to public and private governance systems posed by this unprecedented global environmental problem.
CEPI’s governing board consists of Professor Daniel Farber as Director, and Professors Michael Hanemann and Professor Dan Kammen as co-Directors. Additional board members include Meredith Fowlie and Andrew Guzman.