front cover of Climate Action Planning
Climate Action Planning
A Guide to Creating Low-Carbon, Resilient Communities
Michael R. Boswell, Adrienne I. Greve, and Tammy L. Seale
Island Press, 2019
Climate change continues to impact our health and safety, the economy, and natural systems.  With climate-related protections and programs under attack at the federal level, it is critical for cities to address climate impacts locally. Every day there are new examples of cities approaching the challenge of climate change in creative and innovative ways—from rethinking transportation, to greening city buildings, to protecting against sea-level rise.   
  
Climate Action Planning is designed to help planners, municipal staff and officials, citizens and others working at local levels to develop and implement plans to mitigate a community's greenhouse gas emissions and increase the resilience of communities against climate change impacts. This fully revised and expanded edition goes well beyond climate action plans to examine the mix of policy and planning instruments available to every community. Boswell, Greve, and Seale also look at process and communication: How does a community bring diverse voices to the table? What do recent examples and research tell us about successful communication strategies?
 
Climate Action Planning brings in new examples of implemented projects to highlight what has worked and the challenges that remain. A completely new chapter on vulnerability assessment will help each community to identify their greatest risks and opportunities. Sections on land use and transportation have been expanded to reflect their growing contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. The guidance in the book is put in context of international, national, and state mandates and goals.
 
Climate Action Planning is the most comprehensive book on the state of the art, science, and practice of local climate action planning. It should be a first stop for any local government interested in addressing climate change.
 
[more]

front cover of The Climate Solutions Consensus
The Climate Solutions Consensus
What We Know and What To Do About It
National Council for Science and the Environment
Island Press, 2010
In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize (with former Vice President Al Gore) for its reporting on the human causes of climate change. In 2008, the National Council for Science and the Environment reported that the acceleration of climate change is already faster than the IPCC projected only a year earlier. How we deal with the rapid environmental changes, and the human forces that are driving these changes, will be among the defining issues of our generation.
 
Climate Solutions Consensus presents an agenda for America. It is the first major consensus statement by the nation’s leading scientists, and it provides specific recommendations for federal policies, for state and local governments, for businesses, and for colleges and universities that are preparing future generations who will be dealing with a radically changed climate. The book draws upon the recommendations developed by more than 1200 scientists, educators and decision makers who participated in the National Council for Science and the Environment’s 8th National Conference on Science, Policy and the Environment.
 
After presenting a lucid narrative of the science behind climate change and its solutions, Climate Solutions Consensus presents 35 practical, results-oriented approaches for minimizing climate change and its impacts. It clearly spells out options for technological, societal, and policy actions. And it deals head-on with controversial topics, including nuclear energy, ocean fertilization and atmospheric geo-engineering.
 
One of the book’s key conclusions is that climate solutions are about much more than energy sources. They involve re-examining everything people do with an eye toward minimizing climate impacts. This includes our eating habits, consumption patterns, transportation, building and housing, forestry, land use, education, and more. According to these scientists, the time to act is now. With clarity and urgency, they tell us exactly what needs to be done to start reversing the driving factors behind climate change, minimizing their consequences, and adapting to what is beyond our power to stop.
[more]

front cover of Designing Climate Solutions
Designing Climate Solutions
A Policy Guide for Low-Carbon Energy
Hal Harvey with Robbie Orvis and Jeffrey Rissman
Island Press, 2018
With the effects of climate change already upon us, the need to cut global greenhouse gas emissions is nothing less than urgent. It’s a daunting challenge, but the technologies and strategies to meet it exist today. A small set of energy policies, designed and implemented well, can put us on the path to a low carbon future. Energy systems are large and complex, so energy policy must be focused and cost-effective. One-size-fits-all approaches simply won’t get the job done. Policymakers need a clear, comprehensive resource that outlines the energy policies that will have the biggest impact on our climate future, and describes how to design these policies well.

Designing Climate Solutions: A Policy Guide for Low-Carbon Energy is the first such guide, bringing together the latest research and analysis around low carbon energy solutions. Written by Hal Harvey, CEO of the policy firm Energy Innovation, with Robbie Orvis and Jeffrey Rissman of Energy Innovation, Designing Climate Solutions is an accessible resource on lowering carbon emissions for policymakers, activists, philanthropists, and others in the climate and energy community. In Part I, the authors deliver a roadmap for understanding which countries, sectors, and sources produce the greatest amount of greenhouse gas emissions, and give readers the tools to select and design efficient policies for each of these sectors. In Part II, they break down each type of policy, from renewable portfolio standards to carbon pricing, offering key design principles and case studies where each policy has been implemented successfully.

We don’t need to wait for new technologies or strategies to create a low carbon future—and we can’t afford to. Designing Climate Solutions gives professionals the tools they need to select, design, and implement the policies that can put us on the path to a livable climate future.
[more]

front cover of Harnessing Farms and Forests in the Low-Carbon Economy
Harnessing Farms and Forests in the Low-Carbon Economy
How to Create, Measure, and Verify Greenhouse Gas Offsets
Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and Zach Willey and Bill Chameides, editors, eds.
Duke University Press, 2007
As the United States moves to a low-carbon economy in order to combat global warming, credits for reducing carbon dioxide emissions will increasingly become a commodity that is bought and sold on the open market. Farmers and other landowners can benefit from this new economy by conducting land management practices that help sequester carbon dioxide, creating credits they can sell to industry to “offset” industrial emissions of greenhouse gases.

This guide is the first comprehensive technical publication providing direction to landowners for sequestering carbon and information for traders and others who will need to verify the sequestration. It will provide invaluable direction to farmers, foresters, land managers, consultants, brokers, investors, regulators, and others interested in creating consistent, credible greenhouse gas offsets as a tradable commodity in the United States.

The guide contains a non-technical section detailing methodologies for scoping of the costs and benefits of a proposed project, quantifying offsets of various sorts under a range of situations and conditions, and verifying and registering the offsets. The technical section provides specific information for quantifying, verifying, and regulating offsets from agricultural and forestry practices.

Visit the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions website for audio from the press conference announcing the book.
Read the press release announcing the book.

[more]

front cover of Low Carbon Mobility for Future Cities
Low Carbon Mobility for Future Cities
Principles and applications
Hussein Dia
The Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2017
Urban Transport energy efficiency and environmental sustainability continue to present big challenges for city leaders and policy think tanks. As the share of the world's population living in cities grows to nearly 70 per cent between now and 2050, urban transport energy consumption is forecast to double to meet the travel demand in the world's future cities. This urban growth will also dramatically change the scale and nature of our communities, and put a tremendous strain on the built environment and infrastructure that delivers vital services like transport.
[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter