COBENEFITS talk series in the US

Feb­ru­ary 2018

At the invi­ta­tion of the Amer­i­can Coun­cil on Ger­many (ACG), COBENEFITS project leader Sebas­t­ian Hel­gen­berg­er gave a series of talks in the US on the social ben­e­fits of renew­able ener­gies, shar­ing inter­na­tion­al expe­ri­ences from the COBENEFITS project as well as lessons learned from Germany’s Energiewende.

Social and economic co-benefits continue to drive renewable energy investment in the US, despite difficult climate policy environment under Trump

With ref­er­ence to the his­to­ry of Germany’s ener­gy transition(Energiewende) from the 1970s on, Hel­gen­berg­er explored the soci­etal dri­vers of Germany’s Energiewende as well as the result­ing social ben­e­fits and eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion. Against the back­ground of an accel­er­at­ing tran­si­tion to renew­ables in many coun­tries world­wide, he also looked at how the co-ben­e­fits of renew­able ener­gies, from health and well-being to com­mu­ni­ty empow­er­ment, employ­ment and local val­ue cre­ation, have been debat­ed in the con­text of cli­mate pol­i­cy and the cur­rent polit­i­cal envi­ron­ment in the US.

The talks were held in Feb­ru­ary 2018 at Boston Uni­ver­si­ty (BU), Bran­deis Uni­ver­si­ty, Flori­da Atlantic Uni­ver­si­ty (FAU), Philadel­phia War­burg Chap­ter, Wash­ing­ton War­burg Chapter/Northern Vir­ginia Region­al Com­mis­sion, with a sup­ple­men­tal work­ing meet­ing with the mul­ti­ple ben­e­fits group at the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA).

More about this topic:
Mobi­liz­ing the Social & Eco­nom­ic Co-Ben­e­fits of Renew­able Ener­gies and Ambi­tious Cli­mate Action [PDF]
Assess­ing the Mul­ti­ple Ben­e­fits of Clean Ener­gy — A RESOURCE FOR STATES [PDF]