SEP – the Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy/For an Upcoming Show

Good government policy, of any type, takes a lot of work.  Here's a group, based at Johns Hopkins, providing great guidance, research, leadership on energy.

ISEP – the Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy – is an interdisciplinary research program that uses cutting-edge social and behavioral science to design, test, and implement better energy policies in emerging economies.

Hosted at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), ISEP identifies and pursues opportunities for policy reforms that allow emerging economies to achieve human development at minimal economic and environmental costs. The initiative pursues such opportunities both pro-actively, with continuous policy innovation and bold ideas, and by responding to policymakers’ demands and needs in sustained engagement and dialogue.

A unique feature of ISEP is the pragmatic recognition of the administrative, political, and socio-cultural constraints on policy reform. The initiative is based on the premise that the obstacle to energy policy reform is rarely the lack of better alternatives to the current situation, but rather the vexing difficulty of enacting, implementing, and sustaining these alternatives. We adopt a balanced method that considers both sustainability and access to energy crucial priorities, and conduct rigorous research for evidence-based policy advice.

LEADERSHIP AND UPCOMING GUEST: Johannes Urpelainen

ISEP Founding Director

Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Professor of

Energy, Resources and Environment

Johns Hopkins SAIS

Website: www.JohannesU.com

Email: JohannesU@jhu.edu

Twitter: @jurpelai

Johannes Urpelainen is the Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Professor of Energy, Resources and Environment at Johns Hopkins SAIS and the Founding Director of ISEP.  He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan in 2009 and spent the next eight years at Columbia University.

Johannes is the award-winning author of four books and over a hundred refereed articles on environmental politics, energy policy, and global governance. At SAIS, he teaches action-oriented classes on energy and environmental policy to equip the next generation of global leaders with deep knowledge, advanced analytical skills — and a passion for transformational social change. One of the world’s top energy policy experts, Johannes frequently advises governments, international organizations, and the private sector on energy and environment.

As the Founding Director of ISEP, Johannes is responsible for the vision, strategy, and general management of the initiative. His work under ISEP offers pragmatic but effective approaches to providing the world’s population with affordable and abundant energy at minimal environmental impact. In his spare time, Johannes reads biographies and tries to improve his Hindi.

SEforALL CEO Outlines Challenges in Achieving Sustainable Energy for All

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Kyte identified seven areas for policy advances if we are to achieve the international community's goals for 2030.

The areas are: access to energy; energy productivity; carbon capture and use; transition for coal mining communities; infrastructure finance; mindsets, institutions and transparency; and how to achieve universality and inclusivity.

16 October 2017: Rachel Kyte, Chief Executive Officer of Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL), has highlighted seven challenges to achieving sustainable energy, emphasizing the areas in which policy innovations are needed to provide reliable, resilient and clean energy by 2030.

In her keynote address marking the launch of the Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy (ISEP) at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Kyte said there is a need for a step change in policies in order to deliver sustainable energy for all. She added that the pathway to success goes through success in South Asia, which is a focus of ISEP.

The seven areas for policy advances that Kyte highlighted as priorities if we are to achieve the international community’s goals for 2030 are as follows:

• First, she noted that we have made progress in identifying the one billion people without access to electricity, but we need to develop business models to deliver electricity to them, including by identifying the “missing middle” level for finance.
• Second, she noted that progress in increasing energy productivity should be a priority, and requires a total government approach with support from the highest levels. On this issue, she said efforts to enhance industrial-use efficiency, use efficiency of new buildings, retrofiting existing buildings, and increased appliance efficiency should be addressed.
• Third, on carbon capture, storage and/or use, she said policy around carbon use is the most exciting area for attention.
• Fourth, Kyte noted that the coal mining vocation encompasses cultural advantages, and policy attention to coal should be focused on identifying transition policies that will address the needs of coal mining communities.
• Fifth, on finance, she highlighted the need for infrastructure finance and said one challenge is for development banks to be more risk tolerant. She rejected the idea that underperforming pension funds could be unlocked to provide such funding, and highlighted a recent SEforALL publication titled, ‘Energizing Finance,’ which finds that only half of the needed finance to achieve SDG 7 is flowing.
• Sixth, Kyte said mindsets, institutions and transparency should be addressed. She noted that country planning for achieving the SDGs and the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement on climate change are better than the previous generation of national plans, and highlighted that countries have been able to learn from their neighbors. She stressed the need for policy coherence, including through the reduction of subsidies, to allow developing countries to make progress. She also emphasized that investors, shareholders and regulators need to be on the same page.
• Seventh, Kyte stressed the importance of pursuing policies that embrace the principles of universality and inclusivity, and noted the need to consider how services could be bundled for the poor and to ensure that services reach women.

In conclusion, Kyte said “time is our enemy,” and we have no time to lose.