PAI Seminar: Decision-Making Across Policy Contexts in Climate Mitigation

Wednesday, November 5, 2025 1:30pm to 2:30pm EST

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About this Event

Science and Engineering Complex (SEC), SEC 4.307 View map Free Event

150 Western Avenue, Allston, MA 02134

https://pai.seas.harvard.edu/
View map Free Event

Power and AI Initiative. Climate change has become one of the defining challenges of our time. "Despite global consensus on the urgency of action and a growing suite of technological options—from renewables to carbon management—emissions continue to rise. Bridging the gap between climate ambition and real-world outcomes requires understanding how decisions are made across all levels of society. This talk examines how firms, power utilities, and nations make climate-related decisions under different policy contexts. Using tools from optimization, simulation, and game theory, we study decision-making in (1) policy-following contexts shaped by incentives and market volatility, (2) policy-making contexts where utilities design renewable pricing and revenue-sharing strategies, and (3) no-policy contexts where international climate pledges evolve through global trading networks. Together, these studies uncover the mechanisms and incentives underlying climate decision-making and offer a unified framework for aligning behaviors toward faster and more coordinated climate action."

Event Details

Website

https://pai.seas.harvard.edu/

Cost

Free Event

Speaker 1

Zhiyuan Fan

Speaker Bio

Zhiyuan Fan is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering at Columbia University. His research focuses on decision-making in climate mitigation, bridging the gap between global climate ambitions and localized climate actions. He develops mathematical models and analytical frameworks to understand how firms, power systems, and governments make climate-related decisions, uncovering mechanisms that accelerate or hinder mitigation efforts. He is also a Research Associate at Columbia’s Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP) at the School of International and Public Affairs, where he supports the Carbon Management Research Initiative and the Energy System Modeling Program. His work centers on energy system optimization, hard-to-abate sectors, CO₂ utilization and recycling, and low-carbon infrastructure analysis.

Prior to his Ph.D. program, Zhiyuan worked as a graduate researcher at Columbia University’s Sustainable Engineering Lab in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, where he studied energy system modeling and optimization for deep renewable penetration and electrification of heavy road transportation. He holds an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering (Energy Systems concentration) from Columbia University and a B.Eng. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

 

Host

Le Xie

Contact

Stephen Lemieux

Phone

6034012492

Email

slemieux@seas.harvard.edu