Date & time
Thursday, March 21, 2024
10 a.m. – 11 a.m.
10 a.m. – 11 a.m.
Workshops & seminars
Share this event:
Constructing equity and planning for just decarbonization
Speaker(s)
Dr. Salma Elmallah
Cost
This event is free
Organization
Centre for Engineering in Society
Contact
Where
Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Integrated Complex
1515 St. Catherine W.
Room 2.309
Wheel chair accessible
Yes
Abstract
Decarbonization, or efforts to remake a built environment with lower carbon emissions, can have profoundly unequal effects. To understand these effects, and, conversely, to understand the possibilities of just and equitable decarbonization, we need to investigate both the distributional outcomes of decarbonization policies and the processes by which decarbonization is planned and implemented.
This talk considers the “equity turn” in environmental and climate planning: the increasing recognition by policy-makers that climate policies can impact people unevenly and disproportionately.
In this talk, I ask how cities arrive at equity aspirations and how municipal climate governance constructs ideas about equity, focusing specifically on the climate intervention of residential electrification in the cities of Oakland and San Jose, California.
The talk concludes with a discussion of future research directions for just decarbonization.
Biography
Salma Elmallah is an environmental planning scholar whose research centers around just decarbonization and climate planning across urban and rural regions. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Temple University's Department of Geography and Urban Studies and a research fellow with the Climate and Community Project. She holds a PhD in Energy and Resources with an emphasis in Metropolitan Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, an MSc from the same institution, and a BSc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Alberta.