环境管理和能源可持续性的双重目标为我们国家和世界带来了现代最紧迫的两个挑战。除了对全球气候变化的破坏性影响外，世界对化石燃料的绝对依赖导致了能源安全，公平以及空气和水质问题。现在，基本上所有世界的科学领导者都同意气候在变化，而我们对燃烧化石燃料的依赖性是主要原因。<br​​> <br>可以说，社会拥有满足环境和社会发展所需要的许多技术。能源挑战，但更好的公共政策对于确保采用和广泛使用至关重要。通过案例研究和经济分析，该重点领域说明了设计与清洁系统和技术所面临的障碍的社会技术性质相匹配的政策机制的价值。由于
The twin goals of environmental stewardship and energy sustainability provide our country and the world with two of the most pressing challenges of modern times. The overwhelming dependence of the world on fossil fuels has led to energy security, equity, and air and water quality problems in addition to the destabilizing effects of global climate change. Essentially all scientific leaders in the world now agree that the climate is changing and that our dependence on burning fossil fuels is the dominant cause. It can be argued that society has many of the technologies it needs to meet environmental and energy challenges, but better public policy is crucial to ensuring their adoption and widespread use. Through case studies and economic analysis, this focus area illustrates the value of designing policy mechanisms that match the socio-technical nature of the barriers facing cleaner systems and technologies. Since many energy and climate-related decisions are fraught with deep uncertainties, it is not sufficient to evaluate static policy interventions. New knowledge about environmental conditions, energy resources, technologies and social systems need to be iteratively assimilated into governance approaches.