Three new documents have been added to the Institute's timely "Mitigation Beyond the Cap" series. "Greenhouse Gas Offsets for a Federal Cap-and-Trade Policy: Frequently Asked Questions," provides straightforward answers to questions about offsets for those relatively new to how offsets work in a cap-and-trade climate policy. "The Economics of Offsets in a Greenhouse Gas Compliance Market" explains the nuts and bolts of offsets economics, defines commonly used terms, and addresses a broad range of questions associated with offsets, including their expected market impact, price effects and environmental co-benefits. "Addressing Leakage in a Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Offsets Program for Forestry and Agriculture" presents an overview on leakage, a problem common to many policies, that occurs when efforts to reduce emissions in one place simply shift emissions to another location or sector where they remain uncontrolled or uncounted.  

Institute director Tim Profeta has been elected to the Climate Action Reserve board of directors. The Reserve is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that brings together leaders from industry, finance, government and the environmental community to advance climate solutions. Among its many initiatives, it operates a national offsets program designed to ensure integrity, transparency and financial value in the carbon market by establishing regulatory-quality standards for the development and verification of greenhouse gas emissions reduction projects and tracking the transaction of offset credits in a transparent, publicly accessible system. Profeta is the Reserve's first board member representing an academic institution.  

The American Clean Energy and Security Act contains multiple provisions designed to improve residential energy efficiency. A new policy brief from Duke University's nonpartisan Climate Change Policy Partnership (CCPP) describes four key provisions in the bill and presents options for implementing them if they are passed into law. The brief, also presents five further policy options federal policymakers could consider to improve residential efficiency. "There is enormous potential for energy efficiency improvement in the residential sector, but there are significant market, policy and legacy barriers," says CCPP research analyst David Hoppock. "The Waxman-Markey bill includes multiple programs and allocates emissions allowance resources to address these barriers. If enacted, the bill would improve residential efficiency, but would not overcome all barriers because some barriers, such as transaction costs, are dispersed and difficult to overcome."

Institute staff members regularly are cited by the media for their informed, unbiased expertise on environmental policy and economics. Among recent placements, director Tim Profeta was quoted in an international Bloomberg News wire story about the comparative impact of the Waxman-Markey bill on utilities and oil companies. Lydia Olander, senior associate director for ecosystems services, lent her expertise on agriculture offsets to an in-depth article that appeared in Climatewire and was reprinted in its entirety in theThe New York Times online. Olander also was quoted, along with Aaron Jenkins, associate in research for economic analysis, in a Greenwire article about the emerging role of carbon offsets in ecosystems markets. That article prominently cited a 2009 Institute report on the value of existing and potential ecosystem-services markets from restoring wetlands in the heavily farmed Mississippi Alluvial Valley. You can access these and other Institute media clips at http://www.nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/news.