What does equity look like in ocean governance? In this episode of People, Places, Planet, host Sebastian Duque Rios speaks with Yoshitaka Ota of Ocean Nexus and Randall Abate, ELI Visiting Scholar, about the emerging concept of ocean equity—and why centering social justice is essential to the future of marine conservation and ocean law.

From marine protected areas and small-scale fisheries to deep sea mining, marine geoengineering, and the rights of nature movement, the conversation explores how traditional environmental governance frameworks have often failed to address systemic marginalization in coastal and Indigenous communities. Drawing on anti-subordination theory, environmental justice, and human rights law, the guests explain how ocean equity moves beyond consultation toward meaningful power-sharing—including rethinking free, prior, and informed consent, stewardship-based resource management, and the intersection of human rights and marine conservation. For environmental lawyers, policymakers, and ocean governance professionals, this episode offers a forward-looking framework for aligning conservation, climate action, and justice.

• What is ocean equity? (04:08)
• From EJ to anti-subordination (09:37)
• Consent, power, and meaningful participation (16:05)
• Stewardship and MPAs (21:56)
• Rights of nature and the human right to a healthy environment (29:54)
• Emerging governance challenges and the future of ocean law (33:37)

Is environmental law entering a new era—one defined not just by regulation and litigation, but also by implementation, incentives, and private-public partnerships?

In this episode of People, Places, Planet, host Sebastian Duque Rios is joined by Roger Martella (Chief Corporate Officer and Chief Sustainability Officer at GE Vernova), Mike Vandenbergh (Professor of Law, Vanderbilt University), and Linda Breggin (Senior Attorney at the Environmental Law Institute) to examine how climate and environmental governance is evolving amid political gridlock and regulatory uncertainty.

Building on Martella’s 2024 law review article, the panel traces three eras of environmental law and explores the growing role of private environmental governance—driven by corporate investment, supply chains, investor pressure, and accountability to employees and customers. They discuss the risks and realities of greenwashing, what this shift means for environmental professionals, and how large-scale capital deployment is shaping the energy transition and climate action today.

Join us for a forward-looking conversation for environmental professionals navigating the future of environmental law and policy.

• A new era of environmental law? (05:04)
• From government-led action to private environmental governance (11:24)
• What this means for environmental practitioners and students (17:43)
• Private action in energy and the global climate strategy (21:06)
• Motivating private sector leadership (33:06)
• Supply chains as governance tools (36:26)

As artificial intelligence drives unprecedented growth in electricity demand, data centers are rapidly becoming some of the largest—and most consequential—loads on the U.S. power grid. Utilities that haven’t seen meaningful load growth in decades now face mounting interconnection backlogs, rising costs, and growing concerns about reliability, emissions, and equity.

In this episode of People, Places, Planet, host Sebastian Duque Rios is joined by Dalia Patino-Echeverri of Duke University and Aroon Vijaykar of Emerald AI to explore whether load flexibility offers a way forward. They examine how data centers and AI stress today’s grid, how modest and carefully designed curtailment could unlock significant new capacity without overbuilding infrastructure, and what emerging technologies and policies—from flexible interconnection to software-driven demand response—could mean for electricity affordability, grid reliability, and the future of AI development in the United States.

• The Driving Forces Behind a New Wave of Electricity Demand (2:12)
• What's Constraining the Grid? (6:18)
• Rethinking Grid Limits through Load Flexibility (17:20)
• Inside a Flexible Data Center (40:13)
• What This Means for Policy, Costs, and Emissions (54:13)

Learn more by reading about Emerald AI's pilot in Phoenix and Duke's report on load growth and flexibility, Rethinking Load Growth: Assessing the Potential for Integration of Large Flexible Loads in US Power Systems.