Climate-Just Policy Approaches

Climate-just policy proposals have the potential to address climate change in tandem with social issues. I am interested in both small-scale, incremental approaches, such as nature-based solutions, and broader transformational proposals, notably Green New Deals. I have worked with collaborators on multiple projects to better understand the potential of these policy approaches to meet climate, social, and economic goals.

I have evaluated the implementation of nature-based solutions for the UNDP in Latin America and the Caribbean. This research resulted in a toolkit to support nature-based solutions project analysis for decision-makers, as well as policy briefs on the roles of nature-based solutions in job and livelihood creation and in market resilience and food sovereignty. Further collaborative work on the theoretical dimensions of nature-based solutions resulted in a Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability paper showing how the effects of trade-offs in nature-based solutions for climate-resilient development objectives can be evaluated using a climate justice framework. I also contributed to an evaluation of the role of knowledge and epistemic justice in nature-based solutions design in PLOS Climate, which identified little disruption of existing power relations in nature-based solutions proposals. Locally, I wrote an evaluation of the fare-free bus proposal for Boston and drafted an evaluation framework for the Green New Deal in Boston Public Schools.

My work on Green New Deal proposals in Energy Research and Social Science considered the role of Green New Deals as a multi-systemic and potentially transformational approach to climate policy at multiple scales. A publication in Climatic Change expanded this work by identifying the opportunity for anchor institutions, specifically higher education institutions, to take a leadership role in efforts for climate justice.

Climate Policy Obstruction

Obstruction research continues to uncover the role of fossil fuel industry and government actors in denying climate change and delaying climate action. Because I am motivated to understand how to remove barriers to successful implementation of climate policy, I am interested in identifying sources of climate denial and delay and countering these narratives.

My work, funded by the Climate Social Science Network and published in PLOS Climate, examines how the fossil energy, plastics, and agrichemical industries, which are dependent on fossil hydrocarbons, promote discourses of climate denial and delay on social media. I have also contributed to NSF-funded research on energy transition in Puerto Rico. A narrative analysis of climate and energy policy pre- and post-hurricane Maria, published in Current Research in Environmental Sustainability, suggested that despite the terminology used in the wake of disaster, recovery has emphasized stability and reinforced power dynamics in the existing energy system rather than instigating a sustainable transition.

Climate Policy and Health

I am increasingly interested in intersections between fossil energy infrastructure, climate change, and health, and how policy can address and remediate health impacts of fossil infrastructure and climate change.

At the intersection of these topical areas, I am currently completing my dissertation research on the role of obstruction, regulatory capture, and activism in the political process of fossil energy construction regulation. The dissertation research considers the case of the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Appalachia, drawing on interviews, ethnographic observations, and analysis of regulatory documents to evaluate how key actors navigate the power dynamics of the fossil energy policy process when fossil energy infrastructure creates direct and indirect health harms. Interview data from impacted residents catalogs violence effected during pipeline construction and shows elite capture in US fossil energy regulation. Accounts of resistance actions by local landowners and grassroots organizers suggest that visions of the future and strong community ties can motivate contestation of harmful infrastructure under fossil hegemony.