EESI at 40: Working at the Intersection of Climate Science and Policy

While in graduate school, I took a class called Decision-Making under Uncertainty, which discussed the role of boundary organizations in policymaking. The idea of these boundary-spanning groups that connect decision-makers to relevant scientific information seemed great, although a little abstract. The theory-focused class had me thinking, “Are there actually organizations out there entirely focused on making the scientific research I am surrounded by here at the university accessible and useful to policymakers?”

It turns out, as our readers know, EESI has been doing exactly this work for 40 years, to advance science-based solutions for climate change, energy, and environmental challenges. In a 1988 policy statement, EESI concluded that an understanding of climate science should inform all federal energy policy decisions. Still today, EESI’s Congressional briefings, white papers, articles, and podcasts are all designed to serve as a bridge between the enormous amount of information out there on climate change and the people advancing national-level policy on the issue.

Deborah Gordon is an expert on methane and spoke on the subject at EESI’s 2023 briefing on non-CO2 greenhouse gases. EESI also highlighted key findings from Gordon’s recent book in an article, “Q&A: How Measuring the Differences Between Barrels of Oil Improves Climate Policy.”

As Deborah Gordon, a senior principal at RMI and an EESI Advisory Board member, explains it, “There is a critically important role for EESI to play in bringing science-based climate solutions to Congress. Decision-makers are busy. Climate science is complex. EESI bridges this divide.”

Serving as this bridge comes with a responsibility to deliver accurate and nuanced information. One key aspect of the work is communicating the physical climate science—from greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to the dynamics of the polar vortex. But the work of sharing climate information only starts there. “The reality is that science-based solutions are informed by several kinds of knowledge, including knowledge from the analysis of scientific experiments, predictions from climate models, and traditional knowledge,” explains EESI Board Member Barbara Martinez, director of science for the National Geographic Society. Guided by the goal of bringing knowledge from across disciplines to Capitol Hill, EESI seeks out briefing panelists, podcast guests, and article interviewees from national labs, universities, tribes, state agencies, and beyond.

To learn more about Barbara Martinez’s work, listen to EESI’s season five podcast episode, “How Biodiversity Research Can Inform Public Policy.” In the episode, Martinez shares, “What I really like and appreciate about EESI is the role that you play in Congressional science education, because as we all know, not all, or very few, Congress members have a PhD in any kind of scientific field. But a lot of these issues and topics related to climate change and biodiversity conservation, scientists are still studying these things and learning new information on a daily basis … it takes a really good group like EESI to filter all of that scientific knowledge into something that is palatable, something that makes sense for the policymakers and for the decision-makers.”

For example, during EESI’s Living with Climate Change briefing series, Murali Baggu from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory shared the latest research on how the grid and renewable energy technologies can be made more efficient and resilient to climate impacts. He explained how the North American Energy Resilience Model, which he developed, is used to understand the interaction between air temperature and the grid.

At different briefings during EESI’s beginning-of-a-new-Congress Climate Camp series, Laurel Harbridge-Yong of Northwestern University and Anthony Leiserowitz of Yale University explained their respective research focused on understanding the nuances of compromise and bipartisanship in the U.S. Congress and of public opinion on climate change.

Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communications, presents research findings at a 2023 Congressional briefing.

On The Climate Conversation podcast, EESI recently featured a partnership between the Chickasaw Nation and research firm Aqua Strategies, Inc., which is being facilitated by the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS’s) South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center (CASC). The goal of the collaboration is to understand future water availability in the Red River Basin, which includes parts of New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. The report that was discussed on the podcast highlights that bringing together Indigenous knowledge and climate modeling technologies can unlock new understandings to better manage shared water resources.

The scientific output from federal agencies to help the United States understand and address the climate crisis is immense. EESI lifts up key climate information and clean energy research generated by federal partners, from the Department of Energy’s Energy Earthshots to the interagency Fifth National Climate Assessment.

Peter Green, deputy laboratory director for science and technology and chief research officer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, speaks about the lab’s research informing all eight Energy Earthshots.

Digging back into the archives, one of the first EESI briefings posted on the website, from March 2006, focused on the USGS’s National Water Quality Assessment Program and a nationwide report that assessed “pesticides in streams and groundwater from a decade of monitoring and analysis.” The briefing notice goes on to explain that panelists discussed how “the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and USGS have collaborated to enhance the science base for EPA policy decisions.”

University of Maryland and University of Michigan Professor Rosina Bierbaum, in conversation with Sir Robert Watson and Christiana Figueres, discussed some of the key issues at the interface of science and policy during an EESI briefing in 2021. Most recently, Bierbaum spoke at the briefing, Unpacking the Fifth National Climate Assessment.

It has been 18 years since that briefing, and while the exact topics and reports we cover may evolve, the premise of the work remains the same—get the latest research and knowledge to decision-makers. EESI Board Member and Professor Rosina Bierbaum shared with me that today, “new knowledge about the interactions of multiple stressors must be understood to lead to solutions that are robust across a range of possible futures. The future will include climate change, but it will also include other changes like demographic changes, economic changes, and changing rates of technology deployment and adoption. As we seek to solve one problem, we have to make sure that the solution is not going to create a new problem or exacerbate others, which means we need systems thinking and systems approaches to solve these increasingly interconnected and seemingly intractable problems.”

Professor Rosina Bierbaum presents on the Fifth National Climate Assessment during a January 2024 Congressional briefing.

Gordon echoed this sentiment in an email exchange, explaining, “The situation is dynamic. Changes to the atmosphere, oceans, land use, infectious diseases, migration, and more will be perpetuated. Policymakers need to understand the multitude of changes we are facing in order to adequately respond. There is no substitute for climate intelligence. It helps us prioritize, devise strategies, implement action, evaluate success, and rethink solutions.”

Looking ahead during this anniversary year and beyond, EESI has much work to do to ensure that Capitol Hill continues to have a steady flow of information that captures the complexities of climate change and the nuances of designing true solutions to this grand challenge. Luckily, our work builds on the legacy of dozens of scientists and researchers who have sat on EESI’s board of directors and Advisory Board over the last 40 years, not to mention the thousands of panelists who have lent their expertise during Congressional briefings.

About five years into my time working on the policy team at EESI, the role of boundary organizations is certainly no longer abstract. Our days are spent in conversations with Congressional staff about their information needs and in convening Congressional briefing panels full of experts and practitioners from across the country (and sometimes the world) to deliver educational resources to Congress and the public. The most rewarding moments are those when Congressional staff share that they used EESI resources to help brief their member of Congress on a particular topic and when even more questions come up for us to explore.

Speaking to the essence of this work at the intersection of science and policy and immediately sparking memories from my Decision-Making under Uncertainty class, Bierbaum emphasized, “we are always going to have incomplete information.” Yet, Bierbaum went on to explain that since her time working on the Hill as a Congressional fellow, EESI’s role has been and will always be “giving us the state of the art of science and policy needs to allow us to move forward.”

Author: Anna McGinn