James Meadowcroft

Biography

James Meadowcroft is a leading national voice on environmental policy and politics. For fourteen years, he held a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Governance for Sustainable Development at Carleton University. Currently, Meadowcroft is academic director of Efficiency Canada, a think-tank/data-driven start-up housed at Carleton that advocates for an energy efficient economy. He is a founder and research principal at the Transition Accelerator, a national not-for-profit that advances pathways to a prosperous, competitive and net-zero Canada, and also sits on the board of Accelerate, Canada’s zero-emission vehicle supply chain organization.

As a Chancellor’s Professor in the Department of Political Science and in the School of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton, Meadowcroft investigates how governments adjust practices and policies to cope with emerging problems around the environment and sustainable development. His publications cover many areas in energy and climate policy including: carbon capture and storage, smart grids, the development of Ontario’s electricity system, the politics of socio-technical transitions, and net zero pathways.