These videos were produced by the New Jersey Climate Change Resource Center.

CONFERENCES & WEBINARS

Rebuilding New Jersey after COVID-19: Advancing a Healthy, Resilient, Sustainable and Fair Garden State

This virtual convening brought together leaders from across a breadth of sectors to discuss opportunities for restarting New Jersey’s economy, post COVID-19, in ways that intersect health equity and social well-being with addressing climate change, building inclusive and vibrant communities, and expanding opportunities for civic engagement. These discussions will inform efforts of the Governor’s Restart and Recovery Commission by focusing on ways that COVID recovery efforts can advance other shared public policy goals by:

• Promoting health equity and social well-being, and ensuring adequate resources to support the state’s public health infrastructure, enabling it to prevent, protect against, quickly respond to, and recover from health emergencies;

• Building a state budget that provides direct support to households and businesses hit hardest by COVID-19 in ways that create living wage jobs and that support a sustainable future for New Jersey;

• Ensuring that rebuilding and COVID-19 recovery investments address changing climate conditions;

• Supporting investments in community assets that enhance cultural, historic, and natural resources, as well as those that promote social cohesion; and

• Honoring democratic principles.

DAY ONE

First Panel: Setting the Stage

Demographic and Economic Realities Facing New Jersey – James W. Hughes, Ph.D., University Professor; Rutgers, The State University – An Overview of Demographic and Economic Realities;
Short and Longer-Term Fiscal Realities – Richard F. Keevey, Executive in Residence; Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy; Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey;
Realities of New Jersey’s Health Inequities – Denise V. Rodgers, MD FAAFP; Vice Chancellor of Interprofessional Programs at Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences (RBHS);
New Political Realities Post COVID-19 – John Weingart, Associate Director, Eagleton Institute of Politics; Rutgers, The State University.

Second Panel: Opportunities to Intersect COVID-19 Rebuilding Efforts with state climate, health, energy, social and economic goals

Ana Baptista, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Professional Practice and Chair of Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management Program
Brandon McKoy, President, New Jersey Policy Perspective;
Robert Kopp, Ph.D., Professor and Director, Institute of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey;
Jorge Santos, Chief of Staff, New Jersey Economic Development Authority
Randall Solomon, Executive Director, Sustainable Jersey

DAY TWO

Third Panel: Short and Medium-term Opportunities and Challenges Moving Forward

Richard Lawton, Executive Director, New Jersey Sustainable Business Council
Barbara George Johnson, Executive Director; John S. Watson Institute For Public Policy, Thomas Edison State University;
Kevin Sumner, Facilitator, Public Health Associations’ Collaborating Effort (PHACE);
Kate Slevin, Senior Vice President, Regional Plan Association