Join us on Wednesday, March 25 for a Penn Climate Seminar featuring Shelley Welton, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Law and Energy Policy at Penn Carey Law and the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy.
In leading jurisdictions, the “easy” part of the clean energy transition has been achieved. What remains to be accomplished—constructing energy systems that emit no carbon, rather than just substantially less carbon—will be harder and more expensive. In recognition of these challenges, both New York State and the United Kingdom recently passed laws creating state-owned clean energy companies: New York by giving a new mission to its “New York Power Authority,” and the UK by creating “Great British Energy.”
Proponents of these new state-owned clean energy entities hope that they might deliver the energy transition more affordably, fairly, and quickly than privately owned counterparts. Critics suggest that they are a distraction from solutions capable of mobilizing and deploying private finance at necessary scales. This presentation will discuss and assess these new public power entities, considering their theory, politics, and promise alongside their early implementation challenges and limits.
Shelley Welton is the Presidential Distinguished Professor of Law and Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. She teaches environmental, climate change, and energy law and her research focuses on how climate change presents challenges for governance arrangements and doctrine within energy and environmental law. She holds a PhD from Yale Law School and a JD from NYU School of Law.