Nine Indian Members of Parliament visited that University of Chicago for The Legislators Program 2022 between May 8-12th, 2022. During the trip, the lawmakers met experts from EPIC, Development Innovation Lab (DIL), and the Becker Friedman Institute for Economics (BFI) at the University of Chicago.
The Program, through high-level interactions, augmented legislators’ knowledge concerning pressing energy and environment-related issues and served as a platform to align individual efforts into collective action. By providing Indian Legislators access to academics and subject matter experts, the Program served as a platform for exchanging knowledge and discussing solutions to energy, pollution, and climate change-related problems.
Through sharing EPIC’s global and India-specific research findings to inform future public discourse, the Program also helped the legislators co-identify priorities and solutions that can be implemented in specific constituencies. Like previous editions, this year, the multiparty group of legislators was also selected based on their work and interests in energy and the environment.
Part of the Legislators Program 2022 included a conversation on climate policy in the developing world with Indian Member of Parliament Priyanka Chaturvedi, former U.S. Deputy Climate Envoy Jonathan Pershing, program director of environment at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and EPIC Director Michael Greenstone. The event was moderated by EPIC’s journalism fellow, Lisa Friedman, climate policy reporter for The New York Times.