Ford School and Brookings Institute host climate policy event

About 50 University of Michigan students and Ann Arbor community members gathered in Weill Hall Thursday afternoon for a talk about U.S. climate policy co-hosted by the Ford School of Public Policy and the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C.

Brahima Coulibaly, vice president and director of the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings, was a speaker at the event. Coulibaly told The Michigan Daily he chose to speak at this event because he believes discussing climate policy is especially important during an election year. He said he hopes attendees will take away a heightened understanding of climate policies and how climate change solutions require a group effort.

“If somebody walks away with a greater understanding of the climate as an existential fight, and we need, collectively, all of us, not just politicians, to do something about it, I would consider that to be a great accomplishment,” Coulibaly said. 

During the talk, Coulibaly addressed challenges at the global, national and local levels that prevent effective climate policy from being enacted. 

“The associated challenge is that it’s a global-level problem, but solutions are actually at the local level, within counties, townships, at the nation level,” Coulibaly said. “So massive coordination is needed, but even if you focus on the challenges within the local communities, there are still tremendous challenges to overcome.”

Coulibaly also discussed  long-term dependence on fossil fuels for energy and how it has impacted the world’s capacity for change..

“For the past 100-plus years, we’ve built a society that has become highly dependent on fossil fuels, which run through the veins of the entire global economy and society,” Coulibaly said. “So just shifting that overnight is not going to be easy.”

Cecilia Rouse, president of the Brookings Institute, told The Daily she believes people passionate about climate policy or any other social issue should use voting as a tool for change. 

“If you care about these issues, be engaged and vote,” Rouse said. “We are a democratic society and it hinges on people participating, and that’s how we aggregate up and make decisions as a country. So it’s important that people not just say, ‘Oh, my vote doesn’t matter’, it does.”

Public Policy senior Maeve Larco told The Daily she attended the talk in hopes of learning how climate policy might play a role in the upcoming presidential election.

“I know the Brookings (Institution) does a ton of really important work in terms of qualitative and quantity of measures dealing with climate policy, and I think understanding where we are at a systematic level is really important,” Larco said. “But I also was interested to hear … ‘What’s the political atmosphere and landscape, and what are some of the current barriers?’” 

Daily Staff Reporter Ellen Drejza can be reached at edrejza@umich.edu.

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