Recent Projects
Resilience to Climate Change
Farm Africa
Identified and evaluated potential market-based opportunities for increasing the resilience of Ethiopia’s pastoral people to climate-related risks.
Reducing Hunger and Increasing Resilience to Climate Change
EU-ACP Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA–The Netherlands)
With Maendeleo ya Jamii (Kampala, Uganda), described the factors that facilitated pastoralists’ rapid transition to commercial milk production. Increased production and sale of milk improves the economic wellbeing of pastoral families, increases their resilience to climate-related risk, and offers new economic opportunities to women. Lessons learned from this experience may help pastoralists elsewhere follow a similar path.
External Costs of Crude Oil Terminal
Earthjustice
Testified to the Washington State Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council regarding the potential external economic costs and impacts of implementing a proposal to build a facility to accept crude oil from rail and transfer to marine vessels.
Economic Consequences of Post-Fire Logging
Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, Environmental Protection and Information Center, Center for Biological Diversity, and Klamath Forest Alliance
Testified to the U.S. Federal District Court regarding the potential economic consequences of post-fire logging on the Klamath National Forest following the Westside fire.
Economic Consequences of Post-Fire Logging
Natural Resource Economics
Submitted comments to the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest to clarify errors and deficiencies in the agency’s assessment of the potential economic consequences of post-fire logging following the Chetco Bar fire.
Economic Consequences of Increased Logging
Earthjustice
Developed recommendations for improving the Forest Service’s assessment of the demand for timber from the Tongass National Forest and of the potential costs and benefits of proposed logging.
Economic Costs of Climate Change
Government of Lebanon, Ministry of the Environment, and United Nations Development Programme
Described the costs climate change might impose on Lebanon in 2020, 2040, and 2080 if current trends in global emissions of greenhouse gases continue, as well as the reductions in costs that would result from implementation of emission-reductions, such as those agreed to in Paris at COP21. Described the potential total costs to Lebanon as well as distinct costs from:
- Reductions in agricultural output
- Increases in global food prices
- Reductions in water supplies
- Increases in electricity demand for cooling
- Increases in the risk of death, disability, and disease
- Reductions in biodiversity
- Expansions of land degradation
- Reductions in tourism
- Rises in sea level
- Reductions in workers’ productivity
- Increases in violence
- Increases in involuntary internal migration
External Costs of a Proposed Port and Oil-Export Facility
Katiba Institute and Natural Justice
Testified to the Kenya High Court in Malindi regarding the potential social costs of a proposed commercial port and oil-export facility at Lamu. The testimony also described the failure of the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment and the Strategic Environmental Assessment for the proposed project to describe these costs using the best available science or to provide decision-makers and citizens with the information they need to make fully informed decisions regarding the project’s viability, the prudence of making further investments in the project, and the compensation required to offset the harm the project would impose on local communities, families, and businesses.
In its unanimous decision, the four-judge panel concluded that the project is likely to have significant environmental, social, cultural and other impacts. It also found that the environmental documents failed to “consider, assess, estimate and report on the external costs” of the project and directed the project’s sponsors to correct this deficiency.
External Costs of a Proposed Coal-Fired Powerplant
Katiba Institute and Natural Justice
Testified to Kenya’s National Environment Tribunal in Nairobi regarding the potential external economic costs likely to materialize from implementing a proposal to build a coal-fired electricity generator at Lamu. The testimony also described the failure of the Environmental Impact Assessment for the plant to describe these costs using the best available science and, hence, biases in its description of the harm the plant would impose on communities, families, businesses, and Kenya’s overall economy.
Economic Benefits of Superfund Cleanup
Native Youth and Elders Council
Documented economic reasons for rejecting EPA’s Preferred Alternative Cleanup Plan for the Portland Harbor Superfund site and, instead, taking reasonable actions to cleanup the harbor more quickly and thoroughly.
Economic Value of Forest Carbon
Oregon Stream Protection Coalition
Described the potential economic value of carbon that could be stored in expanded riparian buffers on private forestlands in western Oregon.
Agricultural Sustainability and Resilience
International Fund for Agricultural Development and the UN Development Programme
Developed a framework IFAD can use to scale up win-win approaches that achieve meaningful protection for and enhancement of ecosystems in the dryland countries of Sub-Saharan Africa while raising incomes, jobs, and other indicators of economic wellbeing as well as the short- and long-term security of food production.
Beyond Fossil Fuels
Greenpeace Alaska and Northern Alaska Environmental Center
With Center for Sustainable Economy, described the transition in Alaska’s economy that is occurring in the face of climate change and economic pressures to reduce production of fossil fuels. Recommended policies to bring about an efficient and just transition in seven thematic areas:
- Human capital
- Renewable energy
- Local self-reliance in food and manufacturing
- Cleanup of fossil fuel infrastructure sites
- Protecting Native ecosystems
- Indigenous tourism
- Sustainable fisheries
External Costs of Oil Shipments
Earthjustice
Described the potential external costs of a proposal to ship oil, delivered by rail, from the Port of Grays Harbor, Washington.
Costs and Benefits of River Dredging
American Rivers, Earthjustice, Friends of the Clearwater, Borg Hendrickson, Linwood Laughy, Idaho Rivers United, Institute for Fisheries Resources, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, Save Our Wild Salmon, and Sierra Club
Described deficiencies in the Army Corps of Engineers’ economic analysis and decision-making regarding dredging of the Lower Snake River, Washington.
Maximizing Net Public Benefits from Rivers
Earthjustice
Described steps the Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, and Bonneville Power Administration must take to ensure that their future planning for the Columbia River System maximize sustainable economic development, avoid unwise use of floodplains, protect and restore the functions of natural systems, and mitigate any unavoidable damage to natural systems.
Economic Impacts of Protecting Communities from Wildfire
Environment Now
Described the potential jobs and wages that might materialize in local California Communities from investments in defensible-space approaches to wildfire safety.