GIS Seminar: Towards Low-Carbon and Equitable Urban Energy Systems
Location: Golisano Institute for Sustainability, Decision Theatre (Room 2240)Abstract: Kangkang Tong takes an interdisciplinary and trans-boundary systems perspective to investigate urban sustainability by focusing on multiple interconnected infrastructures. In her seminar talk, Kangkang will present her research on implementing the social-ecological-infrastructure systems framework to investigate low-carbon and equitable urban energy systems. She quantified carbon emissions and identified high-impact cross-sectoral mitigation strategies in 644 Chinese cities. Results demonstrated that these unique strategies collectively contribute to carbon mitigation significantly even at the national level. She will also present her latest findings on inequality and inequity in energy consumption in U.S. cities. After investigating energy consumption inequity at three spatial scales, she found that the finest spatial scale (census block) contributes to identifying energy consumption inequity in cities. Kangkang’s investigation on consumption inequity and carbon mitigation of urban energy systems sheds light on multi-objective planning for sustainable cities.Speaker: Kangkang (KK) Tong, Post-doctoral Associate at the Center for Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy, University of MinnesotaBio: Dr. Tong's current research focuses on urban energy transitions and energy consumption inequality in U.S. cities. Her research is supported by the National Science Foundation's Sustainability Research Network, where she coordinates U.S. energy systems research and engages with practitioners. In addition, she is working with a network of international scientists in the Global Carbon Project on developing a global urban carbon database. KK has an interdisciplinary education background. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science, a Master of Science in Ecology, and a Ph.D. in Public Affairs.
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