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Stories for October/November 2021 |
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Virtual Dialogue Explores Advancing an Inclusive and Just U.S. Climate Resilience Strategy |
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As Congress negotiates a major spending package that includes investments in climate solutions, Duke University co-hosted a virtual dialogue with White House officials and leaders from the resilience, environmental justice, and climate policy communities.
Extreme and sometimes deadly weather events plagued communities across the country over the summer, making clear the urgent need to strengthen the nation’s resilience to climate change. This event explored how the United States should move forward with a climate resilience strategy that places racial, economic, and environmental justice at its core and meets the scale of the challenge.
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Register Now to Virtually Join
the 2021 Duke University Energy Conference
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Curious about the technology, policies, and business strategies that are critical to the clean energy transition?
At the Duke University Energy Conference on Wednesday, Nov. 10, experts will discuss how public and private entities can achieve ambitious climate goals. Sign on to this virtual event and learn from keynote speakers Amy Duffuor (Prime Impact Fund), Jennifer Gerbi (ARPA-E), and Chris Shelton (AES), along with many other industry experts. |
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Webinar to Take First Look at Key Findings from Upcoming Report on Small-Scale Fisheries |
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Led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Duke University, and WorldFish, the Illuminating Hidden Harvests (IHH) initiative aims to generate and disseminate new evidence about the importance of small-scale fisheries to inform policy and practice. A major output of the initiative is a comprehensive research report based on a new and novel methodology.
A 90-minute webinar scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 23, will provide a snapshot of some key findings from the IHH report. Due out in 2022, the IHH report ties together the efforts of nearly 800 authors and experts to contribute to a more complete picture of small-scale fisheries.
The webinar will be held twice to accommodate different time zones:
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Register: 8–9:30 a.m. Rome (CEST) / 2–3:30 p.m. Bangkok (ICT) / 6–7:30 p.m. Sydney (AEST)
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Register: 10–11:30 a.m. New York (EST) / 12–1:30 p.m. Sao Paulo (BRT) / 4–5:30 p.m. Rome (CEST)
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$7.5M Grant Will Fund Study of Offshore Wind Energy’s Impacts on Sea Life |
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Duke University has received a $7.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to assess the risks offshore wind energy development along the East Coast may pose to birds, bats, and marine mammals.
The funding will support the work of a consortium of researchers from 15 institutions. What they learn will inform decisions about the locations of future wind farms and help identify steps that can be taken to reduce harmful impacts on wildlife as offshore wind deployment increases.
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The Business Case for Investing
in Resilient Coastal Ecosystems
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Protection and restoration of coastal ecosystems and biodiversity lies at the center of the solution to enhancing coastal resilience to the effects of climate change, such as rising sea levels and extreme weather events. Yet despite a greater recognition and appreciation of the role played by coastal ecosystems as natural infrastructure, investments into ecosystem and biodiversity protection or restoration have been severely limited.
In a commentary for UNFCCC's Race to Resilience website, Ignace Beguin Billecocq, ocean lead for Climate Champions, and Tibor Vegh, senior policy associate in the Nicholas Institute's Ocean and Coastal Policy Program, write about how a healthy ocean helps the global economy. |
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How Cutting Methane Emissions Could
‘Start Putting the Brakes’ on Damages from Climate Change
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Carbon dioxide emissions have dominated discussions about climate change, but reducing the amount of methane released into the atmosphere can also make an impact. At the world’s largest gathering devoted to climate change, COP26, more than 100 countries, including the United States, pledged to cut methane emissions to 30 percent of 2020 levels by 2030. |
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Ahead of COP26, two Duke experts— Drew Shindell, earth science professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment, and Kate Konschnik, director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions—discussed the role of methane emissions in climate change, the benefits of reducing them, and how they can be better captured. |
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Robert Blasiak, Elin Leander, Jean-Baptiste Jouffray, and John Virdin
The authors of this study in Sustainable Futures compiled a novel library of 2,317 corporate reports from the world's 200 largest companies, by revenue, over a ten-year period (2010–2019) and used text mining tools to identify pronounced regional and sectoral variability in the extent to which plastic waste and pollution is of material importance to corporate operations. The results show a dominant focus on recycling, with far less attention to the other stages of the life cycle of plastic.
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Rusty A. Feagin, Todd S. Bridges, Brian Bledsoe, Elizabeth Losos, Susana Ferreira, ... Lydia Olander, et al.
The authors of this commentary in One Earth suggest that infrastructure must become more resilient as the global climate changes and also more affordable in the economic and political context of a post-COVID world, and that we can solve this dual challenge and drive global infrastructure investment into a more sustainable direction by taking our cues from Nature.
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In this article in the Journal AWWA, the authors studied eleven utilities from across the United States to understand the pandemic's effects on water consumption and utility revenues. Most utilities in the study saw an overall increase in water consumption with a rise in residential demand that offset declines in nonresidential demand. They also experienced increased revenues in 2020 compared with previous years, largely due to rate increases, inclining block rates, and an unusually warm summer. Water utilities’ ability to adjust to fluctuating demand and changing revenue patterns is a testament to their sound financial practices.
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