Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Do Weather Fluctuations Cause People To Seek Information About Climate Change?, Corey Lang

Corey Lang

Learning about the causes and consequences of climate change can be an important avenue for supporting mitigation policy and efficient adaptation. This paper uses internet search activity data, a distinctly revealed preference approach, to examine if local weather fluctuations cause people to seek information about climate change. The results suggest that weather fluctuations do have an effect on climate change related search behavior, however not always in ways that are consistent with the projected impacts of climate change. While search activity increases with extreme heat in summer and extended periods of no rainfall and declines in extreme cold in winter, …

Heat Stress Increases Long-Term Human Migration In Rural Pakistan, Valerie Mueller, Clark Gray, Katrina Kosec

Katrina Kosec

No abstract provided.

Negative Leakage, Kathy Baylis, Don Fullerton, Daniel H. Karney

Kathy Baylis

Our analytical general equilibrium model solves for effects of a small increase in carbon tax on leakage - the increase in emissions elsewhere. Identical consumers buy two goods using income from endowments that are mobile between sectors. Usually an increase in one sector's tax raises output price, so consumption shifts to the other good, causing positive leakage. Here, we find a new negative effect not recognized in existing literature: the taxes sector substitutes away from carbon into clean inputs, so it may absorb resources, shrink the other sector and reduce their emissions. This "abatement resource effect" could offset some or …

Resource Use Under Climate Stabilization: Can Nuclear Power Provide Clean Energy?, Ujjayant N. Chakravorty, Bertrand Magne, Michel Moreaux

Ujjayant Chakravorty

The long-term goal of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the stabilization of carbon concentration in the atmosphere. In this paper, we impose a carbon target concentration on a partial equilibrium model of the global energy sector. Specifically, we ask whether nuclear power can provide carbon-free energy as fossil fuel resources become costly due to scarcity and externality costs. We find that nuclear power can reduce the cost of generating clean energy significantly and relatively quickly. However, beyond a few decades the role of nuclear power may be considerably reduced as uranium becomes scarce and renewables become economical. …

Cycles In Nonrenewable Resource Prices With Pollution And Learning-By-Doing, Ujjayant N. Chakravorty, Andrew Leach, Michel Moreaux

Ujjayant Chakravorty

We study how environmental regulation in the form of a cap on aggregate emissions from a fossil fuel (e.g., coal) interacts with the arrival of a clean substitute (e.g., solar energy). The cost of the substitute is assumed to decrease with cumulative use because of learning-by-doing. We show that optimal energy prices may initially increase because of pollution regulation, but fall due to learning, and rise again because of scarcity of the resource, finally falling after transition to the clean substitute. Thus nonrenewable resource prices may exhibit cyclical behavior even in a purely deterministic setting.

Innovation Cooperation: Energy Biosciences And Law, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

This Article analyzes the development and dissemination of environmentally sound technologies that can address climate change. Climate change poses catastrophic health and security risks on a global scale. Universities, individual innovators, private firms, civil society, governments, and the United Nations can unite in the common goal to address climate change. This Article recommends means by which legal, scientific, engineering, and a host of other public and private actors can bring environmentally sound innovation into widespread use to achieve sustainable development. In particular, universities can facilitate this collaboration by fostering global innovation and diffusion networks.

Tribes As Essential Partners In Achieving Sustainable Governance, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Indigenous peoples have modeled sustainable development around the world. Incentivizing the innovation and instillation of wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources can come in the form of public funding, including renewable portfolio standards, feed in tariffs and green tag programs. This article analyzes ways in which tribal communities are helping to expand cooperative good governance.

Would Hotelling Kill The Electric Car?, Ujjayant N. Chakravorty, Andrew Leach, Michel Moreaux

Ujjayant Chakravorty

In this paper, we show that the potential for endogenous technological change in alternative energy sources may alter the behavior of resource-owning firms. When technological progress in an alternative energy source can occur through learning-by-doing, resource owners face competing incentives to extract rents from the resource and to prevent expansion of the new technology. We show that in such a context, it is not necessarily the case that scarcity-driven higher traditional energy prices over time will induce alternative energy supply as resources are exhausted. Rather, we show that as we increase the learning potential in the substitute technology, lower equilibrium …

Potential For Carbon Offsets From Anaerobic Digesters In Livestock Production, Kathy Baylis, Nicholas Paulson

Kathy Baylis

Participation In The First Cdm Project: The Role Of Property Rights, Social Capital And Contractual Rules, Yazhen Gong, Gary Bull, Kathy Baylis

Kathy Baylis

Paying developing countries for carbon sequestration is seen as a vital component of climate change mitigation. If appropriately designed, these payments can also transfer income to poor villagers, which can aid both the long-term sustainability of the carbon sequestered, as well as meeting the goal of poverty reduction. However, to encourage the participation of small-scale producers, a CDM forest project must offer sufficient incentives with minimal costs to participants. Both incentives and costs are embedded in property rights, social capital and contractual rules. In this paper, we ask what factors affect participation in the world’s first CDM project, established in …