Diversifying Power

Jennie C. Stephens is the Director of Northeastern’s School of Public Policy & Urban Affairs and Dean’s Professor of Sustainability Science & Policy. She is also the Director for Strategic Research Collaborations at Northeastern’s Global Resilience Institute. Her research, teaching, and community engagement focus on social-political aspects of renewable energy transformation, energy democracy, climate resilience, reducing fossil-fuel reliance, gender diversity in energy and climate, and social, economic and racial justice in climate and energy policy. 

The climate crisis is a crisis of leadership. For too long too many leaders have prioritized corporate profits over the public good, exacerbating climate vulnerabilities while reinforcing economic and racial injustice. The inadequate and ineffective framing of climate change as a narrow, isolated, discrete problem to be “solved” by technical solutions is failing. The dominance of technocratic, white, male perspectives on climate and energy has inhibited investments in social change and social innovations. In Diversifying Power, energy expert Jennie Stephens argues that the key to effectively addressing the climate crisis is diversifying leadership so that antiracist, feminist priorities are central. We need to reclaim and restructure climate and energy systems so policies are explicitly linked to social, economic, and racial justice.