By Anthony Lucivero, Advocacy Fellow
Yesterday marked another successful event for the Chapter with our COP21 Paris Climate Talks unConference! The framing question of the day was “what can the USGBC MA and its community do going forward?”
For the first half of the event, we broke into a circle and had a laser-focused group conversation, led by our discussion leaders Henrietta Davis, Josh Craft, Elizabeth Saunders & Alex Papali. The high-level of conversation centered on public policy, building energy use disclosures, and energy efficiency solutions for low-income and under-represented communities. This led to brainstorming possible local solutions to these issues. The use of, and access to, building energy use data, and coming together as a coalition to ensure that happens, was the prevailing idea.
The second half of the event was dedicated to our Paris Panelists, John Sterman, Michael Green & Christopher Mackey. They relayed their Parisian experiences, the lessons they learned, what they thought of the results of COP21, and how we can move forward.
This was a wonderful morning that has given us a bevy of leads on how to proceed as a chapter, and as a community. Our intrepid leader, Grey, will be posting an in-depth review of the event soon.
John Sterman, one of our Paris Panelists, Professor of Management at MIT, and Director of MIT's System Dynamics Group & Sloan Sustainability Initiative has some great resources available about COP21:
- Check out Climate Interactive to see climate models and climate negotiation roleplay workshops.
- You can also read his blog post on COP21 “The Paris Climate Agreement: Deliverance or Disappointment?“, and watch his videos “Will COP21 Climate Deal Save the World?” , and Starr Forum: Paris Climate Talks: Now What? .
Don't miss our next string of events! Here's a quick summary of what's happening:
- Social Equity in the Built Environment, April 4th, 5:30pm – 7:30pm
- Boston Area Sustainability Group presents Environmental Justice: Does Access to Clean Drinking Water Depend on Race and Class?, April 5th, 6:00 – 8:30pm.
- Policy Podium: Autopopulating the MLS with Energy Efficiency and Solar PV Data, April 14th, 8:30am – 10:00am.
Be sure to check out our Events Calendar for the full scope of everything going on!