In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Wei Peng, an assistant professor at Penn State University. Peng recently coauthored a paper in the journal “Nature” that offers recommendations for how to make integrated assessment models more useful in the design of climate policy. Peng discusses how these climate policy models can better represent the real world—especially political dynamics—to better inform policymakers at the local, national, and international scale.

References and recommendations:

“Climate policy models need to get real about people—here’s how” by Wei Peng, Gokul Iyer, Valentina Bosetti, Vaibhav Chaturvedi, James Edmonds, Allen A. Fawcett, Stéphane Hallegatte, David G. Victor, Detlef van Vuuren, and John Weyant; https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01500-2

“Making Climate Policy Work” by Danny Cullenward and David G. Victor; https://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509541799

“Global Energy Outlook 2021: Pathways from Paris” by Richard Newell, Daniel Raimi, Seth Villanueva, and Brian Prest; https://www.rff.org/publications/reports/global-energy-outlook-2021-pathways-from-paris/

RFF’s Global Energy Outlook interactive data tool; https://www.rff.org/geo/