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Stories for July/August 2020 |
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Nicholas Institute Joins Partners to Launch
Climate Risk Disclosure Lab
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The Global Financial Markets Center at Duke Law and the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions have partnered with the National Whistleblower Center in an initiative to improve transparency and accountability in corporate reporting of climate-related risks and support individuals and entities working to address the threats climate change poses to the stability of the global financial system.
The Climate Risk Disclosure Lab, launched July 28, will be a hub for the sharing of information and ideas by individuals from multiple disciplines and perspectives, leading to better-informed choices about managing climate risks by industry leaders, policy makers, law enforcement officials, regulators, academics, non-governmental organizations, and other influential actors.
“The Climate Risk Disclosure Lab will provide an evergreen resource for investors, executives and whistleblowers regarding what is required in the disclosure of climate risk,” said Tim Profeta, director of the Nicholas Institute. |
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Two Policy Briefs Look to Establish Foundation for Federal/State Partnership on Climate Change |
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A Nicholas Institute assessment found that states do not have the required resources to address the complex and unique climate challenges that they each face, including increased severe weather events, coastal erosion, and declining yields from crops and fisheries.
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States and local communities in the United States have increasingly taken the lead on addressing climate change in the absence of federal action, but they lack the resources to meet the scale of the challenge. A pair of new policy briefs from the Nicholas Institute seeks to build a foundation for a federal/state climate partnership by exploring what states need to move forward.
Under the partnership concept, the federal government would establish greenhouse gas emission targets while empowering states to craft individual plans for how to meet those goals. The first policy brief focuses on improvements that states need to make in understanding climate impact costs and developing resiliency strategies. The second brief covers one potential mechanism that the federal government could employ to support state climate efforts—grant programs. |
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New Research Digs Deeper into Rural Attitudes about Climate Change and Environmental Policy |
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The Nicholas Institute hosted a webinar on July 8 with the researchers and pollsters behind a new study on rural Americans' attitudes about climate change.
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In February, the Nicholas Institute published a report that found a divide between rural voters and their urban and suburban counterparts on attitudes toward the environment and conservation—centered not on who values the environment more, but differences in views toward government regulation. A pair of follow-up reports released in July dig deeper into the subject.
In the first new report, researchers from the Nicholas Institute and the University of Rhode Island focused on rural Americans' attitudes toward climate change in the United States. Despite polarization on climate change among rural voters, the study found policy solutions that draw their support.
A second report—conducted by researchers with the Nicholas Institute, the University of Rhode Island, and the University of Wyoming's Ruckelshaus Institute—focuses on rural Westerners' attitudes a bout environmental and conservation policy. The data showed strong support among rural Western voters for environmental protection, although they are deeply ambivalent about government oversight of the environment, especially by the federal government.
Both reports feature polling and focus group interviews conducted by Hart Research Associates and New Bridge Strategy.
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Expert Panels Discuss Government Responses
to Oceanic Plastic Pollution
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Each year, up to 13 million metric tons of plastic enter the world's oceans, endangering marine life, threatening food chains, and polluting shorelines. On June 24, the Nicholas Institute hosted two webinars to discuss the state of government policy responses to this global problem.
In each webinar, John Virdin, director of the Nicholas Institute's Ocean and Coastal Policy Program, presented an overview of a Duke University report that analyzed 20 years of public policies from governments around the world to see how they have tried to slow the flow of plastics. Winnie Lau, senior officer of The Pew Charitable Trusts' Preventing Ocean Plastics Project, moderated a panel of experts and a Q&A session with attendees.
Panelists for the 10 a.m. EDT session were:
Panelists for the 9 p.m. EDT session were:
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Webinar Explores Building
Natural Climate Solutions Policy Agenda
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America’s farms, ranches, and forests are vital to solving climate change. Forests absorb the equivalent of 11–15 percent of U.S. greenhouse gases (GHGs), while agriculture accounts for about 9 percent of U.S. GHG emissions. Yet, federal climate change policy faces considerable skepticism in rural America, particularly among agricultural and forestry stakeholders.
A Nicholas Institute report published in June outlined a menu of policy ideas capable of both garnering the necessary support from rural America and helping the United States reach its climate goals through natural climate solutions. The report's findings were discussed in more detail during a June 12 webinar featuring two of the report's co-authors:
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Robert Bonnie, Executive in Residence, Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions
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Tatjana Vujic, Assistant Professor of the Practice, Duke Nicholas School of the Environment, and Director of Biogas Strategy, Duke University
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Luke Eastman, Erika Smull, Lauren Patterson, and Martin Doyle
May and June 2020 data for the eight water utilities in our study show diverging trends of water consumption and revenues as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, with states and local governments taking different approaches and timelines to rolling back restrictions. There are signs of recovery in water consumption and revenues for many utilities, mostly due to high residential consumption and billed revenues, not increased usage from non-residential customers.
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Katie Warnell
This methods brief focuses on water purification by natural land cover, which removes nonpoint-source pollutants from runoff water before they reach waterways. This analysis maps natural land cover within the likely flowpaths of water from agricultural areas to waterways.
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Conor Mulderrig, Tim Profeta, and Elizabeth Thompson
State and local governments have advanced their own initiatives on climate change when faced with a failure of federal leadership. This analysis looks at the challenge of costs to states in mitigating and developing resiliency to climate change.
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Tim Profeta and Jeremy Symons
The lessons we learn from the mobilization in response to the COVID disaster should be applied as we prepare for another disaster that is putting increasing demands on state and federal resources: climate change. With states and the federal government all having essential roles to fulfill in the response to national disasters, an effective federal-state partnership should be at the heart of a nationwide climate strategy.
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Emily Pechar Diamond, Robert Bonnie, and Elizabeth Rowe
Following a nationwide report of rural attitudes toward the environment and conservation published in February 2020, this report takes a closer look at attitudes about climate change among rural voters. We draw on findings from the national study and incorporate new research with a regional focus on the upper Midwest.
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Robert Bonnie, Drew Bennett, Emily Pechar Diamond, and Elizabeth Rowe
This report builds on the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions’ (NIEPS) report Understanding Rural Attitudes Toward the Environment and Conservation in America. Using the same polling, focus groups, and rural stakeholder leader interviews data from this earlier report, we focus here on the attitudes of rural western voters by taking a deeper look at data from western rural voters.
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Pawan G. Patil, John Virdin, Charles S. Colgan, M Gulam Hussain, Pierre Failler, and Tibor Vegh
The Government of Bangladesh resolved its maritime boundaries in 2014, resulting in jurisdiction over ocean space equivalent to 80 percent of the country’s terrestrial area. To encourage the development of this area and the resources it contains, the Government embraced the concept of a “blue economy” in its most recent development plan, as a broad label for all ocean-linked economic activities that are environmentally and socially sustainable.
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Gulf of Mexico Alliance Virtual Tools Cafe. The Nicholas Institute's Ecosystem Services Program will discuss a repository of ecosystem service logic models and associated socio-economic metrics for various restoration project types taking place in the Gulf of Mexico. Tuesday, September 15, 2–3 p.m. CT.
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National Coastal and Estuarine Virtual Summit. Policy associate Katie Warnell will speak during the summit about mapping coastal protection and carbon storage for climate and resiliency planning. Hosted by Restore America's Estuaries. Tuesday, September 29, to Thursday, October 1.
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Creating Conceptual Models to Systematically Think About Ecosystem Services. Policy associate Sara Mason will discuss how conceptual models can be applied to establish a common but flexible ecosystem services management approach. Part of the Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve's Science Solutions series. Wednesday, October 21, to Thursday, October 22, 1–3 p.m. EDT each day.
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