Amir Jina to Speak on Economic Policy and the Environment
BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — Environmental public policy expert Amir Jina will visit Illinois Wesleyan University to deliver his lecture “Climate and Society: Our Past, Present, and Future” on Thursday, Oct. 25 at 7 p.m. in Hansen Student Center (300 E Beecher St, Bloomington). This event is free and open to the public.
Jina’s talk will address the economic toll of climate change in both developed and developing nations, and how the negative shifts in climate have already shaped the quality of life here and around the world. He will also look ahead at which groups will bear the largest costs and how society can take action to reduce them.
Jina has observed the effects of climate change on societies and economies firsthand through his fieldwork in India, Bangladesh, Kenya and Uganda. As an assistant professor at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, he has conducted extensive research into how environmental changes have shaped development in impoverished and affluent countries.
During his time as a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley prior to the University of Chicago, he contributed to Risky Business, an initiative to assess and publicize the economic risks associated with climate change in America.
Jina is also a founding member of the Climate Impact Lab, an interdisciplinary collaboration among economists, climate scientists, data engineers and risk analysts to empirically estimate the social cost of increased carbon emission. By compiling the world’s most comprehensive body of quantifiable research on the impacts of climate change across sectors and regions worldwide, the Climate Impact Lab allows the general public and policymakers to better understand the risks that climate change poses to society.
Jina earned a Ph.D. in Sustainable Development, a master’s degree in Climate and Society from Columbia University, and a bachelor’s in mathematics and theoretical physics from Trinity College, Dublin.
This lecture complements the University’s annual intellectual theme, Changing Climates.
By Rachel McCarthy ’21