On-Demand Keynote Speaker & Panel Videos
OPENING PRESENTATION
All Hands on Deck; How the Department of Energy and Office of Science are taking action
Opening Session: Dr. Asmeret Asefaw Berhe
Director of the Office of Science at the US Department of Energy
The opening session started with remarks from Battelle's Justin Sanchez and Lou Von Thaer followed by Dr. Asmeret Asefaw Berhe
Opening remarks by Battelle's Lou Von Thaer culminated in the announcement of the 2023 Climate Challenge Winner Ashley Nguyen by Battelle's Wes Hall, before a warm introduction to our opening session speaker Dr. Asmeret Asefaw Berhe. Director US DOE Office of Science, Dr. Berhe's presents on taking bold leaps and actions to solve the climate crisis with scientific innovations, the Federal Government and the American people. Dr. Berhe emphasizes an all hands-on deck on desk approach to climate change as the ripple effects threaten our economy.
PRESENTATION
Net Zero Economy: What's Up With That?
Keynote: Todd Allen
University of Michigan
Todd Allen discusses the complexity of transitioning to a net-zero economy, developing new technologies, determining pathways to expand into wider use of these technologies, and determining the decision-making processes and policy choices to optimize success. The talk frames this transition within three concepts, Energy Technology Complexity, System-informed Decision-Making, and Community-appropriate Capacity Expansion, that are the key considerations through which optimal transitions can be made.
PRESENTATION
Innovations for Climate Resilience at the National Science Foundation
Keynote: Linnea Avallone
National Science Foundation
Linnea Avallone discusses examples of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) investments in programs targeted to encouraging innovation across the sciences, engineering, social sciences, and education aimed at developing climate resilience.
PRESENTATION
Putting the "H" in Resilience: Integrating Health Services in Climate Resilience Efforts
Keynote: John Balbus
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health
The HHS Office of Climate Change and Health Equity has committed to improving climate, resilience and health protection of people in the United States, especially those most vulnerable, and to resilience and emissions reduction in the nation's public and private health sectors. In this presentation, John Balbus examines the current state of resilience programming for several different types of healthcare facilities, including safety net hospitals, community health centers, and nursing homes.
PRESENTATION
The Metrosphere: How Humans, Infrastructure and Nature Shape the Emerging Environment of Cities
Keynote: Elie Bou-Zeid
Princeton University
In the past 50 years, the global population living in cities increased from 35% to 55%, and will approach 70% by 2050. Urban population density, and its associated infrastructure and resource needs, create an environment unlike any other on Earth. Understanding and managing this “Metrosphere” has never been more urgent as cities become the central stage for confronting global challenges related to climate change, infrastructure resilience, human health, and the net-zero transition. In this talk, Elie Bou-Zeid overviews some of the challenges cities face, and emerging technologies that will help make our urban environments more sustainable, resilient, livable and equitable.
PRESENTATION
How a 100-Year-Old Cooperative is Helping Farmers Build Climate Resilience Today
Keynote: Karen Boyd
Truterra
We often do not hear about what agriculture can and is doing to reduce lobal emissions and remove carbon. Truterra, the sustainability business of farmer-owned cooperative Land O’Lakes, is on the leading edge of this regenerative agriculture movement. Karen Boyd discuss how Truterra is working to help farmers, ag retailers and others engaged in the farm and food supply chain, identify, and adopt management practices that lead not only to improved productivity, but also to a more sustainable and resilient food system.
PRESENTATION
The Prerequisite to Bold Political Will? Patient, Thoughtful Communication
Keynote: Sweta Chakraborty
We Don't Have Time
Implementation of existing and new innovations for climate resilience is often met with the refrain “if only there was the political will.” The political will to make what is often perceived as costly and potentially career destroying resiliency investments will undoubtedly waiver without public support. In this presentation, Sweta Chakraborty showcases innovations in behavioral science for the effective use of communication as a tool to garner public support for perceived costly, but critically necessary innovations in climate resilience.
PRESENTATION
FarmVibes: Democratizing Digital Tools for Sustainable Agriculture
Keynote: Ranveer Chandra
Microsoft Corporation
Agriculture is one of the biggest contributors to climate change. It could also be a potential solution to the climate problem. If farmers use the right agricultural practices, then it can help remove carbon from the atmosphere. However, making progress on any of the above challenges is difficult due to the lack of data from the farms. Ranveer Chandra how Project FarmVibes could build affordable digital technologies to help farmers (1) estimate the amount of emissions in their farm, (2) with climate adaptation by predicting weather variations, and (3) determine the right management practices that can be profitable, and also help sequester carbon.
PRESENTATION
Challenge Accepted: Moving from Plans to Actions
Keynote: John Conger
Conger Strategies and Solutions
The Biden Administration has prioritized climate change and its integration into national security policy from Day One. We have seen a series of Executive Orders, cabinet officials have made it one of their key issues, and they’ve published a host of strategies and plans. Can the Administration turn these plans into actions and their words into deeds? Focusing particularly on the national security portfolio, John Conger looks at the progress to date and the challenges we face in making this transition.
PRESENTATION
Cleaning Up Climate Change: Carbon Dioxide Removal and Practical Climate Recovery
Keynote: Jessica Cross
NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory
In 2022, atmospheric CO2 concentrations were higher than at any time in at least 2 million years. The warming caused by these excess greenhouse gases are already affecting every inhabited region across the globe, with potentially dire consequences for many ecosystems and human communities. This in turn has led to the development of new legislation targeted at developing a US strategy for carbon removal. Jessica Cross present an overview of the emerging field of carbon removal research and implementation as a pathway towards practical -- and possible -- climate recovery.
PRESENTATION
Resilient and Equitable Climate-Driven Energy Transitions
Keynote: David Judi
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
In this presentation, David Judi discusses how climate-driven extreme events continue to impact infrastructure systems and new considerations in climate resilience, such as equitable energy transitions.Climate-driven extreme events
continue to impact infrastructure
systems
PRESENTATION
U.S. Global Change Research Program: Advancing Science to Inform Decisions
Mike Kuperberg, Ph.D.
U.S. Global Change Research Program
Advancing Science to Inform DecisionsThe U.S. Global Change Research Program was created by law in 1990 to "assist the Nation and the world to understand, assess, predict, and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global change." In this presentation, Mike Kuperberg shows how the Program carries out that mandate and the current areas of focus.
PRESENTATION
Creating a Star on Earth, Ignition, and a Fusion Energy Future
Keynote: Tammy Ma
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
In December 2022, a team at Lawrence Livermore National Lab’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) conducted the first controlled fusion experiment in history to reach scientific energy breakeven, producing more energy from fusion than the laser energy used to drive it. In this talk, Tammy Ma reviews the NIF – the world’s largest, most energetic laser, the latest experimental results, the scientific and technological advancements that made this breakthrough possible, and the implications for future research, particularly in how the achievement of ignition now lays the groundwork to explore laser inertial fusion as a path for clean energy and energy security.
PRESENTATION
Sustainability at Google Cloud
Keynote: Kel Markert
Kel Market discuss how Google Cloud practicing sustainability and it's goals to be carbon-free by 2030.
PRESENTATION
We Can Use Carbon to Decarbonize - and Get Hydrogen For Free.
Keynote: Matteo Pasquali
Rice University
Constraints on CO2 emissions are confronting society with multiple massive challenges: creating new sources of clean energy beyond solar and wind; electrifying our transportation systems and using lighter weight materials; decarbonizing the industrial sector; and dealing with the economic fallout associated with shrinking the fossil hydrocarbon industry, which accounts for about 7% of the world economy. At first blush, the solutions to these dilemmas appear to be at odds with one another. In this talk, Matteo Pasquali shows that there may be a way forward that positively influences all of these aims.
PRESENTATION
Climate Resilience in the Polar Regions
Keynote: Rebecca Pincus
Wilson Center
The polar regions—the Arctic and Antarctica—are in climate crisis. The Arctic is warming faster than any other region of the globe. Warming in the polar regions has global implications, and the potential feedback effects from thawing Arctic permafrost are daunting. Climate change is threatening the way of life of communities and Indigenous peoples in the Arctic. It endangers species and ecosystems in both polar regions. How can we build resilience at the poles? How can we pursue resilience while managing other challenges, including geopolitical tension? Rebecca Pincus discuss that and more in this presentation.
PRESENTATION
Achieving a Net Zero Farm Through Genomic Innovation
Keynote: Brad Ringeisen
University of California, Berkeley
The Innovative Genomics Institute has a multidisciplinary team of scientists developing next generation genomic tools to enable a net zero farm. Research thrusts include enhancing crop photosynthesis, reducing agricultural emissions (rice, ruminants), reducing farmer inputs (irrigation, pesticide, nitrogen), and increasing agricultural soil carbon capture and sequestration. Brad Ringeisen discusses the innovative genomic tools and approaches being used to precisely control both plant and microbial function to create climate resilient agricultural systems while increasing yields and enabling quantitative carbon capture.
PRESENTATION
Moving from Analysis to Action: Developing the Right Toolbox to Tackle Climate Security
Keynote: Erin Sikorsky
The Center for Climate and Security
The summer of 2022 made the security implications of climate change crystal clear – militaries around the world deployed in response to unprecedented wildfires, droughts and flooding, while a global food crisis revealed the systemic strain posed by conflict and climate and a global energy crisis underscored the risks of continued reliance on fossil fuels. Reflecting these developments, the new US National Security Strategy, released in October 2022, stated that climate change is an issue at the, “...very core of national and international security and must be treated as such.” The question now is how to move from analysis to action. What tools does the national security community need to better integrate climate considerations into its work? How can the national security community change how it does business to better prepare for a warming world? What role do national security actors have in advocating for or participating in global mitigation strategies? Erin Sikorsky, Director of the Center for Climate and Security, answers these questions and provide a roadmap for climate security action in the years to come.
PRESENTATION
Ground Truthing Climate Resilient Development: Linking Climate Adaptation, Mitigation, and Development in Cities
Keynote: William Solecki
City University of New York - Hunter College
The recent IPCC reports illustrate the need for immediate, comprehensive, and transformative global climate action. A critical part of this action needs to include integrative efforts that link together climate adaptation, mitigation and development. Efforts of this type, though complex and challenging, has begun to attract attention as an emerging new planning paradigm. William Solecki presents the basic conditions associated with climate resilient development and investigates how cities can serve as models for successful climate action of this type.
PRESENTATION
Climate Change Research at a Crossroads
Keynote: Amanda Staudt
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Tackling the unprecedented challenges posed by climate change requires new research approaches commensurate with the scale, scope, and complexity of this problem. Research investments and programs need to embrace a systems approach that bridges disciplines in new ways, be nimbler and more responsive as new challenges arise, and develop new ways to work more closely with underrepresented communities to shape future activities that address their needs. Drawing upon recent National Academies’ reports, Amanda Staudt highlights opportunities for the research community to rise to the climate change challenge.
PANEL
Climate Innovation: Fact or Fiction?
Moderator: Justin Sanchez
Panelists: Katrina Knauer, Bradley Ringeisen, Amanda Staudt, Joseph Wilkins
You've heard the remarkable claims before about new climate technologies and solutions, but which ones will truly make a societal impact? Join us for a rapid-fire discussion to uncover the most important truths and misconceptions about climate innovation.
PANEL
Energy Communities: Repurposing Coal with Nuclear
Moderator: Christine King
Panelists: Kenya Stump, Andrew Bochman, Kevin Nordt
Recent models show that as we move to a decarbonized economy, significant building of zero carbon energy infrastructure will be required that will include all generation types. To meet the clean energy goal, the nuclear deployment could be over 6 GW per year in the 2030s and estimates of up to 200 GW of new nuclear capacity by 2050. Looking beyond the technical requirements associated with repurposing coal stations with nuclear technology, one finds a unique opportunity in our transition to a clean economy. This panel will discuss how repurposing coal with nuclear is an opportunity for utilities to start a nuclear project and get federal support through various mechanisms as they transition the coal station.
PANEL
Democratization of Climate Tech
Moderator: Dan Ferber
Panelists: Whitney Sawney, Linda Molnar, Ranveer Chandra, Erin Sikorsky
Climate change presents a fundamental injustice: The well-off of the world have driven the bulk of the problem, while the less well off suffer the most from the impacts, including drought, floods, fiercer storms and heat waves. New climate solutions are essential. But to be effective, they must be sustainable themselves and become part of everyday life. This panel will explore how to reap the fruits of science, integrate new thinking, and tap the wisdom of historically marginalized peoples to deliver the benefits of climate technology to everyone.