3. The American guests

First session
Climate change: new markets, a new economy?

Peter Meyer (PhD, Economics, 1970), President, The E.P. Systems Group, Inc., is Professor Emeritus of Urban Policy and past Director, Center for Environmental Policy and Management, Univ. of Louisville; 1970s-80s, he was Director, Local Economic Development Assistance Center, Pennsylvania State Univ. Dr. Meyer has devoted his career to community and local economic development and public policy evaluation, especially international comparisons of economic development and environmental practices. He addressed local energy conservation in the 1970s, and now looks to lower the carbon intensities of national economies.

Richard Youngman is Managing Director of the Cleantech Group's European operations, and is responsible for driving the growth of the group's activities in Europe. He ran his own advisory firm conducting research and consulting on the measurement and evaluation of intangible assets and intellectual capital for organizations such as the European Commission. Richard has an MA from Cambridge University, and an MBA from Theseus International Management Institute, Sophia Antipolis, France.

Second session
The Californian paradox: laboratory of urban mobility?

Donald Shoup , Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners, is a professor of urban planning at UCLA, where he has served as Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and as Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies. His research has focused on parking as a key link between transportation and land use. This research has drawn widespread praise for revealing how parking policies can help or harm cities, the economy, and the environment. A growing number of cities have adopted Shoup’s recommendations to reduce off-street parking requirements, charge fair market prices for curb parking, and dedicate the meter revenue to finance added public services in the metered districts.

Elizabeth Sullivan is a co-founder of Streetline Networks and is credited with the company's early mission-driven commercial success and collaboration with Bay Area cities. She now serves on the Advisory Board. Before Streetline, Ms. Sullivan founded and ran a successful car-sharing company called City CarShare in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work in urban community transformation and smart growth has earned her recognition from agencies such as the California Environmental Protection Agency, San Francisco Tomorrow, and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. She holds a BA in Communication from Antioch College and is working towards an MFT in Psychology.

Third session
Climate plans, an instrument for local authorities?

Johanna Gregory Partin serves as Director of Climate Protection Initiatives in the Office of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, where she advises Mayor Newsom on citywide sustainable energy, climate, transportation, green building and other programs promoting sustainability for the City. From 2006-2009, Ms. Partin served as Renewable Energy Program Manager at the San Francisco Department of Environment, where she worked to help the City meet its renewable energy targets, focusing on the residential and commercial sectors. Ms. Partin has over 14 years' experience in the fields of renewable energy, microfinance, gender equity and sustainable development, and has worked both locally and in more than 14 countries around the world. Johanna has a Master’s degree in Energy & Environmental Policy from the University of Delaware and a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies and Anthropology from the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Stephen Wheeler is an Associate Professor at the University of California at Davis where he teaches courses related to community and regional planning, urban design, and sustainable development. He is interested in how many different planning and design strategies can work together to produce more sustainable communities. His current research focuses on theory and practice of sustainable development; the evolution of built landscapes in and around metropolitan regions; and state and municipal planning strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He is the author of Planning for Sustainability: Towards Livable, Equitable, and Ecological Communities and The Sustainable Urban Development Reader. He has been Transportation Commissioner of Berkeley, CA. This past year he won the 2009 Dale Prize for Excellence in City and Regional Planning, a national U.S. award.
Two articles written by Stephen Wheeler about climate plans: State and Municipal Climate Change Plans: The First Generation and California’s Climate Change Planning: Policy Innovation and Structural Hurdles.

Fourth session
Will information technologies save planet USA?

J.D. Margulici is the Associate Director of the California Center for Innovative Transportation (CCIT), at the University of California, Berkeley, which he joined in 2004. He has nearly 10 years of experience designing, marketing and deploying information technology systems, with primary applications to road traffic management and public transit, airport infrastructure, and air traffic control. J.D. worked for the French air traffic management agency before becoming the Director of business development at Edatis, a Paris-based software company. Prior to joining CCIT, he was a consultant in airport operations with Jacobs Consulting. J.D. is a graduate from the École Polytechnique in Paris, France, and holds a M.S. in Transportation Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

Carlo Ratti is an architect and engineer. He teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he directs the SENSEable City Laboratory, which he established in 2003. This research group explores the "real-time city" by studying the increasing deployment of sensors and hand-held electronics, and their relationship to the built environment. In February 2008 they presented an installation at the MoMA in New York: the New York Talk Exchange. The project illustrates the global exchange of information in real-time by visualizing volumes of long-distance telephone and Internet data flowing between New York and cities around the world. He graduated in engineering at the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris, France, and at the Politecnico di Torino in Italy. He later earned his MPhil and PhD degrees in architecture from the University of Cambridge, UK.

Sixth session
Cleantech mobility solutions: assessing and choosing?

Mark Wilson is a Principal Counsel at the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), focusing on U.S. federal legislation and state initiatives including drafting public comments to the US EPA and providing legislative analysis to Congress on behalf of IETAs 170 + member companies. Mr. Wilson has also drafted multiple Emissions Reduction Purchase Agreements and Emissions Trading Master Agreements. He has worked in the US Senate as a legislative advisor on energy, natural resource, environmental, transit and agricultural issues on behalf of US Senator Amy Klobuchar, US Senator Jeff Bingaman, and the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

Seventh session
Climate change and mobility in the USA: who makes the Law?

Elizabeth Deakin is Professor of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley, where she also is an affiliated faculty member of the Energy and Resources Group and the Master of Urban Design group. She formerly served as Director of the University of California Transportation Research Center (1998-2008) and co-director of the UC Berkeley Global Metropolitan Studies Initiative (2005-2008). Her research focuses on transportation and land use policy and the environmental impacts of transportation. She has published over 200 articles, book chapters, and reports on topics ranging from environmental justice to transportation pricing to development exactions and impact fees. She currently is carrying out a series of studies on urban development and transportation in China, Latin America, and India as well as in California. She holds degrees in transportation systems analysis and political science from MIT as well as a law degree from Boston College.

Albert Bressand is the Aristotle Onassis Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University (SIPA) and Director of the Center for Energy, Marine Transportation and Public Policy (CEMTPP). From 2005 to 2009, he was also Special Adviser to EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs. Formerly, he was a Vice President of Royal Dutch Shell in London, overseeing the design of a new generation of Shell Global Scenarios to 2025 and was cofounder of Promethée, a Paris-based think tank specializing in the global networked economy. Dr Bressand also served as Economic Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of France and held key positions at IFRI and the World Bank. A graduate from Polytechnique, École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées and Paris-Sorbonne, he holds a PhD in Political Economy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Eighth session
The connected traveler, generating energy?
A coming revolution in smarts grids and microgrids?

Daniel Sperling is Professor of Engineering and Environmental Policy and founding Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis. He was appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger to the California Air Resources Board, responsible for designing and adopting climate policies for vehicles, fuels, and urban travel. He is author or editor of 200+ papers and reports and 11 books (including Two Billion Cars, Oxford University Press), and recently chaired the Future of Mobility committee of the (Davos) World Economic Forum. He earned his Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley and his B.S. in Environmental Engineering and Urban Planning from Cornell University. He worked two years as an environmental planner for the US Environmental Protection Agency, two years as an urban planner in the Peace Corps in Honduras, and spent one year on sabbatical with the La Conférence Européenne des Ministres des Transports (now known as le Forum International des Transports).

Richard Schorske is founder and Executive Director of the Electric Vehicle Communities Alliance, and project coordinator for the Greater San Francisco Bay Area EV Corridor Project, which includes 12 Bay Area Counties (encompassing more than 7 million residents) and many large and small cities, including San Francisco. He is also a co-founder of “Ready, Set, Charge California” – which is a joint venture with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and GM, whose mission is to accelerate deployment of EV infrastructure throughout the state. Finally, he is a strategic advisor to two companies in the clean energy and climate space. He was formerly the founder and Climate Action Director for the Marin Climate and Energy Partnership, a coalition of 15 cities and public agencies in the north Bay Area, and prior to that was Executive Director of Workforce Silicon Valley, an initiative of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group which helped to align Silicon Valley’s high school and community college system with the needs of high-tech employers.