At the heart of the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions' mission is one clear objective: shaping policy making by educating decision makers and organizations about their choices. Our Fiscal Year 2014 Annual Report showcases tools we are creating to improve decision making and effect positive change now and potentially decades into the future. Read about the Energy Risk Lab, the Conservation Economics Initiative, and the Federal Resource Management and Ecosystem Services Guidebook in the report's feature story. Also highlighted are research and other efforts to inform the nation's energy choices, to overhaul the nation's water system, to reflect green infrastructure in accounting systems, to manage nitrogen inputs, and to tackle the challenges of climate change in fisheries management.

Brian Murray, director of the Environmental Economics Program, is the recipient of a Fulbright Visiting Research Chair Award in Environment and Economy. Through Fulbright Canada, he will spend the spring 2015 semester at the University of Ottawa researching carbon pricing systems. Specifically, his research will examine the integration of emerging subnational carbon markets in the United States and Canada that are created by trading of carbon emissions allowances. The markets encourage countries and companies to limit carbon dioxide emissions.

A new paper co-authored by the Nicholas Institute's Billy Pizer, explores whether key choices about delinking and the handling of banked permits can improve market outcomes when links between carbon programs are-or are at risk of being-severed. In general, the analysis found that costs will rise when markets are delinked and prices can diverge even before delinking occurs.   
 

Read about what led Nicholas Institute Board Member Diana Propper de Callejon [1984 BA Political Science] to pursue a career in solving environmental problems and what advice she has for aspiring environmental leaders.

Each semester, the Duke University Energy Initiative and the Nicholas Institute co-host "Power Trips" to educate and engage interested students in energy use at Duke, neighboring universities, businesses, and other organizations. Our tours take graduate and undergraduate students to innovative energy facilities on campus and across the region to see advanced technologies, learn how they work, and ask questions of the people who run them. See video from our first tour yesterday. 

Job openings at the Nicholas Institute provide opportunities for selected candidates to play a role in the leading environmental debates of our time. Current openings include website administrator and temporary public relations specialist.