ment in emerging markets, to geopolitical issues as we move away from fossil fuels, to national security in foreign policy.” As Bordoff helps to lead the Climate School, he will continue to teach at SIPA and run CGEP. Before coming to Columbia, it was his experience in energy policymaking while working with the Clinton and Obama administrations that led him to conceive of the need for a place like CGEP. During that time, he had wished there was an objective, rigorous, analytical resource for leaders in the public and private sectors to help them understand all aspects of the environment in a format and time frame that worked for them. “Policymakers deal with complex issues and have quick expectations, and often they don’t have the time to gain all the knowledge they need about a subject matter,” Bordoff says. “Academia is extraordinarily powerful in the new knowledge it creates and the depth of its expertise, but they can take a lot of time to process it; think tanks are fast and efficient, but they don’t have the depth of research capability that Columbia does. My goal with CGEP was to connect that capacity for knowledge creation with efficient turnaround times and get it to the people who are making those big decisions about our energy policy.”
RESEARCH AT CGEP
CGEP focuses its research on climate change problems in which Columbia has a unique capability and expertise to make an impact, such as regulatory and policydesign issues around carbon capture and removal technology. Sandalow had an extensive career in the US government before joining SIPA in 2013, serving in senior positions at the White House, State Department, and Department of Energy. CGEP provides him with an excellent base to research a range of climate change topics, particularly for his work with China. He visited China for the first time in 1981—under an exchange program through Columbia Law School, coincidentally—and has spent years working on Chinese energy and climate policy. At SIPA his work spans issues including ways to decarbonize China’s energy sector to how to make the Belt and Road initiative greener, and his research involves many of SIPA’s Chinese students. He has an appointment as a distinguished
visiting professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing and is the author of the Guide to Chinese Climate Policy, an authoritative resource for researchers and practitioners. His latest research is on the effect of the entire food system — from land clearing to farming to transportation to disposal — on climate change. Together with partners from Columbia’s Earth Institute, NYU, and others, he and his team have formed the Food Climate Partnership, a collaborative research effort to develop better data and policies that can effectively combat the climate crisis.
STAYING AHEAD OF THE CURVE
With Bordoff’s leadership, SIPA’s collaboration with the new Climate School will seek to foster solutions to the climate crisis while also enhancing the School’s
substantial expertise and degree programs in areas such as sustainability, energy, and the environment. “SIPA is unique in that we’re willing to learn by teaching,” Mutter says. “We see an interesting problem in the world and say, ‘Let’s teach a course on that,’ instead of waiting for it to be solved first. There’s a desire to be on top of things here, and SIPA brings in the expertise to understand if there’s a physical phenomenon to be understood as part of a social phenomenon.” Looking ahead to SIPA’s future collaborations with the Climate School, Bordoff says, “I think that SIPA is an interesting place because it has depth across so many disciplines. It’s important to create action in climate change by bringing in knowledge from other fields, and a purely climatefocused school can’t accomplish that.”
MORE FACULTY RESEARCH ON CLIMATE CHANGE Geoffrey Heal, a professor at SIPA and the Donald C. Waite III Professor of Social Enterprise at Columbia Business School, has made substantial contributions in the field of environmental economics. He has contributed significantly to the understanding of the economic value of ecosystems and the complex, uncertain risks posed by the changing climate.
Benjamin Orlove, professor of international and public affairs, focuses on climate change adaptation, environmental anthropology, human response to glacier retreat in mountain regions, water management and governance, natural hazards and disaster risk reduction, and urban sustainability.
Jeffrey Shrader, assistant professor of international and public affairs, examines the role of expectations and forecasts in helping individuals prepare for changing environmental and economic conditions, which helps policymakers understand the benefits and limitations of information-based policy interventions and sheds light on the total economic costs of environmental changes.
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