Hélène Benveniste investigates how climate change is reshaping global migration patterns, what the future holds, and how countries can work together for solutions. September 23, 2024 Stanford Facebook Stanford Twitter Stanford LinkedIn Forward Email Print Article As told to Beth Jensen Helene Benveniste I think it’s fair to say I’m obsessed about environmental issues and climate change. I can pinpoint the beginning of all that to a high school project in my hometown of Rennes, which is a mid-size town in Brittany in western France. I was studying hurricanes, and how their strength was expected to increase along with climate change. I was fascinated by the idea that climate change was going to be driving events like this at a global scale. At first, I thought the only way I’d be able to participate would be by becoming an engineer and working in energy technology. France, particularly at that time, was a very technocratic society, and policy decisions on energy were very top down. My perspective changed during my first professional experience after college working at the French Embassy in Berlin, when Germany was launching its huge renewable energy transition plan and phasing out nuclear power following the Fukushima accident in Japan. Later, I worked as a research analyst for the scientific advisory group to the French negotiation team for the Paris Agreement, where I saw how the scientific, policy, and political communities interacted. Both these experiences made me realize I wanted to learn more about the policy and political questions surrounding climate change, so I decided to get my PhD in policy. Because I wanted to work at the international level and thought it made sense to not have all my degrees from my home country, I came to the U.S. I began my PhD in 2016, shortly […]
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