2019 YSEALI Professional Fellows Program.

Warathida Chaiyapa

I was awarded 2019 YSEALI Professional Fellows Program in the area of
Governance and Society. The program is sponsored by the American Council of
Young Political Leaders (ACYPL) which generously provides administrative and
financial support for over 30 leaders from 10 Southeast Asian countries to
conduct a fellowship in the USA from October 12 – November 23, 2019. My
fellowship project was to learn how climate change policy and energy policy are
formed and implemented by local governments in the USA. Considering the
fact that the actual implementation of climate change mitigation takes place at
the local levels, I was inspired to investigate Climate Change Action Plan of
American local governments (at city, county and state level) in order to bring
back their knowledge and best practice to be applied to the case of Thailand. It
was my great opportunity to be placed at Department of Public Health and
Environment at Denver City and County government, Colorado for 4 weeks.
During this period, I had semi-structured interviews with diverse stakeholders
who involved in the planning process of Denver Climate Action Plan 80×50.
Furthermore, I interviewed one Representative and one Senator of Colorado
state and gained their perspectives on Climate change mitigation and energy
development. Plus, I facilitated a focus group discussion with 7 officers at
Department of Public Health and Environment was held to collect more in-
depth information about pain points on energy issues and the future scenario
on energy that these participants expected to see in Denver. The result of both
interviews and focus group discussion will be used as part of my lectures in the
course “Energy policy” and “Climate Change Policy” for graduate students at
Chiang Mai University School of Public Policy. Last but not least, I was awarded
the ACYPL micro-grant in 2020. This will be used to support my project in
building climate change literacy to local municipality in Chiang Mai.