RFF’s Top Stories of the Past Year

The social cost of carbon (SCC) can have a major impact on US climate regulations, but estimating its value can be complicated. This Resources magazine article covers the latest work from RFF on the SCC. The research aims to account for the technical uncertainties and employ empirical data to make the best possible estimate of this very important number, which is expected to be updated by the federal government in January.

RFF’s Richard G. Newell and Maureen L. Cropper—coauthors of a landmark report about the SCC from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine—reflect in this blog post on how the Biden administration can orient the process for updating the SCC around scientific and regulatory best practices.

In this article—part of an ongoing blog series about the potential of hydrogen for decarbonization—RFF’s Jay Bartlett and Alan Krupnick assess when and how “green” hydrogen, which is produced from water electrolysis using renewable or nuclear power, could play a pivotal role in the path toward reducing emissions.

In this episode of the Resources Radio podcast, host Kristin Hayes talks with new RFF Fellow Penny Liao about the working paper Liao coauthored, which explores how home equity shapes a household’s decision to purchase flood insurance.

This blog post, coauthored by ten RFF experts, covers the Biden administration’s American Jobs Plan and policy approaches to boost clean energy, protect the environment, and speed decarbonization.

In this Resources Radio podcast episode, Daniel Raimi talks with Pilar Thomas—a partner at Quarles & Brady and a former official in the US Departments of Justice, Interior, and Energy—who describes the complex relationship between some tribes and fossil fuels. She notes opportunities for tribes to innovate beyond federal and state law and build up more renewable energy infrastructure.

In this blog post, RFF’s Wesley Look, Daniel Raimi, and Molly Robertson describe the report they coauthored about important considerations in the transition to a clean-energy economy. Their discussion focuses on the role of economic development, environmental remediation and infrastructure, labor supports, and public benefits in ensuring fairness for workers and communities.

Electric vehicles represent a promising step toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector, but the road to getting there may have some bumps. RFF Senior Fellow Joshua Linn has researched various important considerations on this front, including the role of pilot programs in ramping up investments for charging infrastructure and the role of consumer demand in helping electric vehicles attain 100 percent market share within the next decade or two.

RFF’s Policy Leadership Series is accessible to everyone via podcast episodes that feature interviews with private- and public-sector leaders such as former US Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell; the 16th administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, Michael Regan; and BP CEO Bernard Looney.

RFF researchers have considered border carbon adjustments from a variety of perspectives. Erin Campbell and Billy Pizer suggest possible pathways for countries without a formal carbon price to implement their own border carbon adjustments. Joseph E. Aldy examines how the United States can use countervailing duties under international trade law to simultaneously work toward its climate goals and ensure a level playing field for American businesses. And Brian Flannery describes how a greenhouse gas index can account for the emissions of internationally traded goods.

With relevant lessons for the contemporary effort to eradicate COVID-19, an event at Resources for the Future that took place a decade ago examined the incentives for nations to disclose and address the spread of disease. A blog post, which was published on the one-year anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, reflects on key takeaways from economics research on the spread of pandemics and includes audio clips from the original event.