MAEP Alumnus and Lecturer at Grenfell Campus, Temitope Onifade, Builds on Policy Training

MAEP Alumnus and Lecturer at Grenfell Campus, Temitope Onifade, Builds on Policy Training

MAEP 2015 Alumnus and Lecturer for Environmental Law at Grenfell Campus, Temitope Onifade, has recently enrolled in a PhD programme as one of the inaugural International Doctoral Fellows of the University of British Columbia. His doctoral project examines the role of law and society in the regulation of low carbon economies, specifically the limitations of law and how society, through emerging governance initiatives such as Carrot Mob which uses a mechanism called “buycotts” and Equitable Origin which uses certification, could support law. He started getting ideas for this project during his time at the Environmental Policy Institute. His supervisor is Dr. Stepan Wood.

Temi’s doctoral project builds on his experience as a lawyer at Lex Luminaire LLP in Nigeria, representing small-scale low carbon businesses such as Biofuel Development Farmers’ Association and Green Energy Plant. It also builds on two policy projects he started as a MAEP student. The first project, on low carbon policy, has examined how polities could regulate renewable energy and energy efficiency. Some of its outputs have appeared as refereed articles in Renewable Energy Law Policy Review in 2015 and Energy Policy in 2016, and accepted as a conference paper at the Sabin Colloquium on Innovative Environmental Law Scholarship at Columbia University in 2016. The second project, on resource policy, has focused on how resource projects and revenues should be regulated. Some of its outputs have also appeared as refereed articles in Human Rights Review in 2015 and recently in the Journal of Energy and Natural Resources Law in 2017, and presented in 2016 at the Law and Society Conference at New Orleans and the Canadian Law and Society Conference at Calgary. During his time at the University of Calgary, Temi continued working on the two policy projects as a fellow under the Stikeman Elliot LLP Research Fellowship in 2016 and as the John Ballem QC LLD Postgraduate Research Fellow in 2017.

Bringing his legal practice experience and the findings from these policy projects together, Temi will approach low carbon regulation from a law and policy perspective, revolving around how law affects policy and vice versa. He is very grateful to have passed through the MAEP programme where he learnt to contextualize law in policy. His experience evidences how dynamic the MAEP programme is, and how students could adapt what they learn in the programme to their work.