Speaker: Benjamin K. Sovacool
Professor of Earth and Environment, Boston University

Abstract: Over one billion people—one in five globally—lack electricity to light their homes or conduct business. Many more only have access to poor quality service. Widespread access to clean, reliable, and affordable energy is critical for achieving inclusive, low-emissions growth and development. But which technologies, and business models work? Which don’t? This presentation demonstrates how small-scale renewable energy technologies such as solar panels, cookstoves, biogas digesters, microhydro units, and wind turbines are helping planners eradicate energy poverty and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Through an in-depth exploration of case studies in Bangladesh, China, India, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, and Sri Lanka, the presentation highlights the applicability of different approaches to the promotion of renewable energy in developing countries. It also illuminates how household and commercial innovations occur (or fail to occur) within particular energy governance regimes. It lastly, and uniquely, explores successful case studies alongside failures or “worst practice” examples that are often just as revealing as those that met their targets. Based on these successes and failures, the presentation presents salient lessons for policymakers and practitioners wishing to expand energy access and raise standards of living in some of the world’s poorest communities.Dr. Benjamin K. Sovacool is Professor of Earth and Environment at Boston University in the United States, as well as Professor of Energy Policy at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex Business School in the United Kingdom. He is also University Distinguished Professor of Business & Social Sciences at Aarhus University in Denmark. Professor Sovacool works as a researcher and consultant on issues pertaining to energy policy, energy justice, energy security, climate change mitigation, and climate change adaptation. More specifically, his research focuses on renewable energy and energy efficiency, the politics of large-scale energy infrastructure, the ethics and morality of energy decisions, designing public policy to improve energy security and access to electricity, and building adaptive capacity to the consequences of climate change. His research has been endorsed by U.S. President Bill Clinton, the Prime Minister of Norway Gro Harlem Brundtland, and the late Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom, among others. He is a Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), due to be published in 2022, and an Advisor on Energy to the European Commission’s Directorate General for Research and Innovation in Brussels, Belgium. He has played a leadership role in winning collaborative research grants worth more than $28.2 million in directly managed funds, including those from the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. National Science Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Program of Denmark, the Danish Council for Independent Research, the European Commission and the European Research Council. In the United Kingdom, he has served as a Principal Investigator on projects funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, Natural Environment Research Council, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. He is the recipient of multiple national and international awards and honors, including the “Distinguished Graduate Alumni Achievement Award” from his Alma Mater Virginia Tech, the 2019 USERN Prize for his work on “Social Justice in an Era of Climate Change and Energy Scarcity,” the “Dedication to Justice Award” given by the American Bar Association, and a “Distinguished Visiting Energy Professorship” at the Environmental Law Center at Vermont Law School. With much coverage of his work in the international news media, he is one of the most highly cited global researchers on issues bearing on controversies in energy and climate policy.

The Center for Environmental Politics organizes a monthly colloquium series on environmental politics, policy, and governance. This series is made possible by the generous support of Gary and Susan Duck, UW alumni and long-standing benefactors of the department. The Duck Family Colloquium Series is managed by graduate students.