Two Nicholas Institute senior staff members and Institute board member William L. Chameides, dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment, will take part in a U.S. Senate briefing on carbon offsets today (Feb. 6) in Washington, D.C. The briefing will focus on the mitigation and cost-containment potential posed by bringing in emissions sources from outside the cap, and on the use of offsets to accomplish this in a cap-and-trade policy. Lydia Olander, senior associate director for ecosystem services, and Brian Murray, director for economic analysis, will present overviews on the policy options and economic impacts of mitigation beyond the cap. Chameides will review the science of offsets. The briefing is hosted by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), and the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. Olander and Murray are widely cited experts on standards and protocols for GHG offset projects and policy in the agricultural and forestry sectors. They have co-authored "Mitigation Beyond the Cap," a series of briefs that assesses how best to use offsets to incorporate GHG mitigation from sectors and actors outside a regulatory policy. Chameides, an atmospheric chemist, co-edited the Institute's "Harnessing Farms and Forests in Low-Carbon Economy," the first how-to manual for turning land-use practices into verifiable GHG offset credits. 

A new series of policy briefs and working papers from the Climate Change Policy Partnership at Duke examines obstacles and opportunities for moving the nation toward a low-carbon economy. The papers and briefs (available online here and individually below) address four core areas of promise: wind power, increased electric energy efficiency; plug-in hybrids versus regular hybrids; and energy storage for low-carbon electricity. CCPP is an interdisciplinary partnership of the Nicholas Institute, the Nicholas School and Duke's Center on Global Change. It researches carbon-mitigating technology, infrastructure, institutions and systems to inform lawmakers and business leaders as they lay the foundation of a low-carbon economy.

The Nicholas Institute and the German Marshall Fund will hold two briefings on competitive provisions to climate policies, Feb. 19, in Washington, D.C. The hour-long sessions, one each for the Senate and House sides of Congress, will examine policies available to avert competitive losses for heavy manufacturing. Institute Associate Director Nicole St. Clair Knobloch and Cathleen Kelly at the German Marshall Fund are working closely with Senate and House staffers to coordinate the briefings. The briefings will preview a longer session, to be held in March or April, with U.S. industry and European leaders. That session will be open to the wider public. For more information, contact Knobloch at [email protected]. 

Rafe Sagarin, associate director for ocean and coastal policy, and Eric Roston, senior associate at the Institute's Washington, D.C., office, have been invited to present at the 2009 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The AAAS meeting is the largest general science conference of the year. Being invited to present at it is widely viewed as a measure of a researcher or policy analyst's high stature in his field. Roston will present "New Century, New Threats, New Frame" at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 14. His presentation, based in part on his 2008 book "The Carbon Age," will make the case that in light of the role carbon plays in climate change, we need to rethink the way we view the world and our place in it. Geology, specifically carbon-cycle geochemistry, must become embedded in the way we value goods and services. Sagarin will moderate a symposium on "Natural Security: A Darwinian Approach to a Dangerous World" at 8:30 a.m. Friday, Feb. 13. The symposium, based on a book of the same name Sagarin co-edited in 2008, will focus on how lessons learned from species' adaptive responses to threats in their environments can help modern society cope with threats such as terrorism. 

Senior policy analysts at the Nicholas Institute say the climate protection initiative announced last month by members of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) is an "equitable solution to a difficult problem," and that it sends a "unified signal" that environmentalists and industrialists alike support federal cap-and-trade legislation to address climate change. In a statement issued following the USCAP announcement, Director Tim Profeta and Director for Economic Analysis Brian Murray praised the USCAP initiative and emphasized that the Institute stands ready to assist policymakers and industry leaders as they address how best to implement climate policy. "Capitol Hill offices and major stakeholders have for some time sought out the Nicholas Institute for guidance on pivotal issues relating to a Carbon Market Board, offsets and cost containment measures. We're encouraged that these measures are considered in the USCAP blueprint," Profeta said.