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Kira Stoll is the director of sustainability at UC Berkeley and David Wooley is a visiting professor at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy and executive director of the Center for Environmental Public Policy. (UC Berkeley photos by Max Godino)
Climate change is a pressing and urgent global issue and a challenge that needs planet- and human-focused solutions. The state has signed into law numerous policies designed to reduce greenhouse gas emission from buildings, industrial processes, vehicles, agricultural and solid waste management, electric power and fossil fuel production and freight transport. Those policies are continuously evolving to reflect change in technology, markets and public opinion. UC Berkeley and the UC system have pledged to be carbon neutral from building and fleet energy use by 2025, and from transportation and other sources by 2050.
Kira Stoll, the director of sustainability at UC Berkeley, and David Wooley, a visiting professor at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy and executive director of the Center for Environmental Public Policy, gave a talk on May 1, 2019, about what is underway in green building, energy efficiency, clean electricity, resource management and behavior-based programs, and how these can help meet these ambitious but achievable goals.
Kira Stoll was the 2016 recipient of the Sustainability Champion Award at the California Higher Education Sustainability Conference for the critical role her staff play in transforming campus operations, as well as providing leadership for UC system-wide initiatives. At the campus level, Stoll has spearheaded a solar energy procurement project to bring 1MW of photovoltaic energy to campus through a collaborative RFQ with 19 other public agencies. She has also worked diligently to improve alternative transportation options on campus, as well as reduce greenhouse gas emissions from operations. In her system-wide role as co-chair of the Climate Change Working Group and representative to the UC Global Climate Leadership Council, she has advocated for staff engagement and climate action planning that has driven progress towards UC’s goal to be carbon neutral by 2025.
David Wooley has over 30 years’ experience with electric power regulation, climate policy and Clean Air Act implementation. Wooley is also of counsel at the Oakland firm, Keyes & Fox LLP, a law practice focused on distributed energy resources, and has served as an assistant attorney general in New York, taught energy and environmental law at Pace University Law School and was a founder and executive director of the Pace Energy Project. Later, he directed the American Wind Energy Association’s Northeast Policy Project, served as counsel to the Clean Air Task Force and as vice president for Domestic Policy Initiatives at the Energy Foundation in San Francisco. David is co-author of West Group’s Clean Air Act Handbook (2017).
This lecture is part of a series of talks sponsored by UC Berkeley’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) .