Kaveh Madani (Yale University)

Sunday, October 27, 2019
4:00 PM
Dodd Hall 78

In this seminar, Kaveh Madani, a former deputy head of Iran’s Department of Environment, overviews the major drivers of Iran’s water resource problems and shares his observations during his service as the Deputy Vice President of a country that is under strong international and domestic pressure. He argues that Iran is suffering from a socio-economic drought—i.e. “water bankruptcy,” where water demand exceeds the natural water supply significantly. Madani believes that the current structure of the environmental governance system in Iran leaves minimal hope for a meaningful reform that can address Iran’s environmental problems in a timely manner. In this talk, he reviews how the internal politics forced him to eventually resign from his post.

Kaveh Madani is an environmental scientist, educator, and activist, working at the interface of science, policy, and society. He has previously served as the Deputy Vice President of Iran in his position as the Deputy Head of Iran’s Department of Environment, the Vice President of the UN Environment Assembly Bureau, and Chief of Iran’s Department of Environment’s International Affairs and Conventions Center. He is currently a Henry Hart Rice Senior Fellow at the
MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies of Yale University and a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Environmental Policy (CEP) of Imperial College London. He recently won the Hydrologic Sciences Early Career Scientist Award in 2019 for his research activities.

Lecture in Persian

Sponsor(s): Center for Near Eastern Studies, Iranian Studies