NRDC is a non-profit environmental advocacy organization. We use law, science, and the support of 3.1 million members and online activists to protect the planet's wildlife and wild places and to ensure the rights of all people to clean air, clean water, and healthy communities. NRDC was founded in 1970 and our people helped write some of America's bedrock environmental laws, including the Clean Water Act and many of the implementing regulations. Today, our team of more than 600 lawyers, scientists, economists, policy advocates, communications experts, and others work across the United States and the globe from our offices in Beijing; Chicago; New Delhi; New York; San Francisco; Santa Monica; and Washington, D.C. 

NRDC is seeking a Schneider Fellow to work with the International Team in one of our Washington D.C. office.

Position summary:

NRDC’s Global Division seeks a Fellow to work with our Global Energy Transition Team to analyze the potential contribution of solar and energy storage technology to increase power sector resilience in Africa and Latin America.

Climate change threatens our planet and its people, and these impacts will be uniquely felt places dependent on hydropower.  For instance, climate change-linked drought already disrupts the stability of the power grid in many hydro-dependent countries around the world, especially in Africa and Latin America. 

A just energy transition must help to increase energy resilience in the face of these global warming impacts.  Solar power and energy storage systems (ESS) could help stabilize the energy grid in the face of hydropower disruptions brought on by increasing drought.   In doing so, these technologies could provide a cleaner alternative to increased fossil fuel usage in terms of providing dispatchable power in periods of low hydroelectric output. 

Working with the Global Energy Transition Team’s Analyst and partner non-governmental organizations in Africa and Latin America, the Fellow position could include analysis of

• The potential roles that solar and energy storage technologies could play in increasing the dispatchable energy when climate change disrupts hydropower electricity
• Technical barriers to accelerating deployment of these technologies in Africa and Latin America
• Multilateral and bilateral lending programs that could be leveraged to ramp them up

The fellow may also be asked to help with additional analysis on additional team projects to accelerate the Just Energy transition in emerging and developing economies, as needed. 

Must be a Stanford student to apply

NRDC is committed to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion, both in our work and in our workplace. We believe that celebrating and actively welcoming diverse voices and perspectives is essential to solving the planet's most pressing environmental problems, and we encourage applications from candidates whose identities have been historically underrepresented in the environmental movement. 

We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate in hiring or employment on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, marital status, sexual orientation, national origin, citizenship, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.  

Our offices are open and we are operating in a hybrid model. We offer NRDCers flexibility, and we ask them to come into the office and spend meaningful time there in collaboration with their colleagues. We call this purposeful presence. 

As a science-based organization, NRDC aims to do our part to help contain the COVID-19 public health crisis. For the sake of health, safety, and equity, we ask that people be vaccinated unless they have an approved medical or religious accommodation or other exemption in accordance with state and local law. We consider a person to be vaccinated two weeks after receiving one full course of a CDC-approved vaccine. In accordance with state or local law, new hires will be asked to attest to vaccination, those wishing to do so may request medical or religious accommodations or other exemptions via NRDC Employee Relations. NRDC treats all vaccine-related data confidentially, in keeping with local, state, and federal laws. 

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For more about NRDC, visit www.nrdc.org.