AMHERST — An initiative at the University of Massachusetts bringing together energy technology research and social justice, with an aim of enhancing green technology and infrastructure while focusing on equity, launches Monday.
The Energy Transition Institute gets underway with a panel discussion featuring national leaders in sustainable and equitable energy.
U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, who has championed the Green New Deal and other environmental causes, and Danielle Deane-Ryan, director of equitable climate solutions for the Bezos Earth Fund and formerly acting director for stakeholder engagement at the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy under President Barack Obama, will both speak at the event, which begins at 4 p.m. at the Old Chapel.
A Zoom link to registrants, available by going to energytransitionumass.org/, will allow people to join remotely.
Transition Institute Executive Director Anna Goldstein said in a statement that the United States is facing overlapping crises of climate change, a global pandemic, and systemic inequality that the institute is helping to address through its research.
“As we move toward a low-carbon energy system, we need to be intentional about righting the injustices in our current energy system, while also supporting job creation and economic recovery,” Goldstein said.
The institute states as its mission enabling “a fast and fair transition to a decarbonized energy system in the United States.” In a report to its advisory board, those involved with the Energy Transition Institute write that it “sees the coming physical and economic transformation as an unprecedented opportunity to address current and historical injustices and ensure that the benefits of clean energy are shared by all.”
Amilcar Shabazz, a professor in the university’s W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, will moderate a panel that will include Erin Baker, professor of industrial engineering and faculty director of the Transition Institute, UMass Amherst alumnus Elvis Mendez, executive director of the community activist organization Neighbor to Neighbor, and Cielo Sharkus, a UMass doctoral candidate in environmental resource engineering.
While the institute is officially launching, its work has been ongoing for more than a year. In September 2020, UMass was awarded two grants totaling $6.3 million from the National Science Foundation to ensure the transformation of the electric grid is both sustainable and benefits all members of society equitably. This has allowed research experts in energy technology and climate science to collaborate with scholars in equity and social justice on an interdisciplinary program called Elevating Equity Values in the Transition of the Energy system, or ELEVATE.
Last May, ETI also co-hosted the inaugural UMass Energy Forum, and its members recently advised the Amherst Town Council against enacting an 18-month moratorium on ground-mounted solar projects that could disturb wooded land.
The launch event is joint project of the UMass School of Public Policy, the Wind Energy Center, the Institute for Social Science Research, and the departments of anthropology, civil and environmental engineering and economics.
