Twice a month, we’re compiling the most relevant news stories from diverse sources online, connecting the latest environmental and energy economics research to global current events, real-time public discourse, and policy decisions. Keep reading, and feel free to send us your feedback.
Here are some questions we’re asking and addressing with our research chops this week:
What pieces of information are commonly used to disclose flood risk to homebuyers, and what information could more effectively communicate this risk?
Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Texas last week and caused floods in communities on the coast and farther inland, including Houston. A decrease in take-up rates for flood insurance in recent years may aggravate the damage to affected communities. As floods become more common due to climate change, effectively communicating flood risk to residents in vulnerable areas, along with potential new residents in these areas, “is essential for people to make educated decisions about where to live, what kind of insurance to have, and how much to invest in floodproofing,” says Margaret Walls, a senior fellow at Resources for the Future (RFF) and director of RFF’s Climate Risks and Resilience Program. Information about flood risk is especially salient for homebuyers. In a new blog post, Walls discusses information related to flood risk that sellers commonly are required to disclose to homebuyers, along with alternative disclosures that may more effectively communicate flood risk.
How do communities in the United States prepare for and respond to flooding?
The remnant storms of Hurricane Beryl delivered heavy rainfall and flooding to Vermont. Many residents who still are recovering from extreme flooding last summer now are faced with new damages. In response, communities across the state are coordinating recovery efforts, using the lessons from last year’s cleanup. “Communities that are damaged by floods routinely take measures to build resilience in the aftermath of flooding disasters, even if those measures are costly or politically fraught,” says RFF Fellow Yanjun (Penny) Liao in a recent article on the Common Resources blog. The article highlights a working paper in which Liao and her coauthors assess community responses to flooding using data gathered from a federal program that incentivizes flood preparedness. Liao and her coauthors find that responses to floods vary based on a community’s income level and proximity to an urban center. “Communities with more resources can adapt in ways that lower-capacity communities cannot,” says Liao.
What’s the effect of social media exposure on tourism in US national parks?
Zion National Park in Utah is developing a plan to manage the increased visitation that’s been accumulating in recent years. Visitation to Zion has increased by 90 percent since 2010; in 2023, 4.6 million people visited the park. Other national parks, including Mount Rainier in Washington State, already have implemented plans to manage similar booms in tourism. Increased visitation is due partly to the exposure that the parks have received on social media, according to a recent study by Casey Wichman, an RFF university fellow and associate professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “The relationship between social media and national park visitation [is] a form of persuasive advertising for recreation decisions,” says Wichman on a recent episode of the Resources Radio podcast. While overcrowding is a risk, increased visitation also brings benefits: “Those parks are getting additional revenue from entrance fees,” says Wichman. “Those visitors are booking hotels, buying souvenirs, and booking guided trips. All of those things can help support local economies.”
Expert Perspectives
As Americans prepare to vote this fall, how will climate change factor into their decisions at the polls? The first report in the Climate Insights 2024 series, set to be released throughout the summer and fall this year, finds that large majorities of Americans agree that climate change exists and want institutions to do more to address the issue. Jon Krosnick, a university fellow at RFF, describes the top-line findings of this first report in a new In Focus video. Since 1997, Krosnick and other RFF researchers have tracked views held by Americans about climate change as part of the Climate Insights survey project. Find out how these views have changed over time.
Resources Roundup
Credit: swissdrone / Shutterstock
Designing Electricity Markets That Can Decarbonize the Energy Sector While Meeting Growing Demand
A growing demand for electricity and the integration of renewable energy into the US electric grid require new and improved designs of electricity markets that can meet demand under adverse conditions, like extreme weather events. Chiara Lo Prete, a professor of energy economics at Penn State University, joined an episode of the Resources Radio podcast to discuss new designs of electricity markets, the challenges associated with electricity reliability, and a recent report published with RFF scholars Karen Palmer and Molly Robertson, which evaluates various electricity market designs for the clean energy transition. “The key challenge [with the transition to carbon-free electricity generation] is that the amount of energy that is supplied by renewable resources during high-demand periods can be unexpectedly low. This implies that potential challenges to grid reliability extend beyond just peak hours, as it used to be in the past,” says Lo Prete on the podcast.
Clarifying New Tax Credits for Clean Energy Production
The Inflation Reduction Act added and changed a variety of tax credits for the production of clean energy, including technology-neutral tax credits that essentially replace existing tax credits for specific technologies such as wind and solar. In May, the US Department of Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service proposed guidance for these technology-neutral tax credits. In a new issue brief, RFF Fellows Aaron Bergman and Kevin Rennert outline the questions that are answered by Treasury’s proposed guidance and discuss further questions that need to be addressed. “Perhaps the most important aspect of this guidance is that Treasury published an initial list of technologies that can qualify for these tax credits,” say the authors.
Prioritizing Diversity and Equity in the Field of Environmental Economics
While attending the annual conference of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, Jill Caviglia-Harris joined an episode of the Resources Radio podcast to discuss her work teaching and mentoring early-career professionals in environmental economics and efforts to facilitate diverse perspectives in the field. Caviglia-Harris is a professor of economics at Salisbury University and an architect of a mentoring program for young scholars in environmental economics. “In our core values, we have a mission to provide skills to young scholars. Our vision, more long term, is to change the culture in economics,” says Caviglia-Harris. “We believe more voices in the room makes a better outcome in that we are, as a whole, a better field if we’re able to use all of those voices.”
Involving Affected Communities in Environmental Economics Research
While the Inflation Reduction Act emphasizes supporting environmental justice and equity in the clean energy transition, equitable outcomes are not a given, particularly if communities are left out of discussions around the design and implementation of climate policies and programs. Involving affected communities in research may help achieve equitable outcomes by providing insights that economic policy analysis may overlook. In a new working paper, RFF Fellow Beia Spiller and coauthors examine the role of community-engaged research in environmental economics and evaluate the adoption and impact of this kind of research in the field. “Though [community-engaged research] is not yet mainstream in environmental economics, the discipline has been moving in that direction, with notable efforts to elevate equity and enhance inclusion in our field,” say the authors.
How International Climate and Trade Policies Can Mesh
Carbon intensity is the ratio of carbon dioxide emissions that are released per unit production of a good (e.g., steel or aluminum). Carbon intensity provides a metric that can help measure emissions reductions in the industrial sector and that countries and companies can reference when designing and implementing climate policies. In a new working paper, RFF scholars Milan Elkerbout and Katarina Nehrkorn discuss methods of calculating carbon intensity and the ability of nations to improve climate policies that deal with trade without creating administrative barriers to trade; achieving this balance is known as the interoperability of policies. “Countries understandably adopt policy designs that fit their national political and economic circumstances,” say Elkerbout and Nehrkorn. “Interoperability should be seen more as a bottom-up process that leads to gradual alignment on methodologies and processes while allowing countries to pursue distinct policy goals and designs.”
#ChartOfTheWeek
Chart: First Street Foundation.
The 100-year floodplain is the area that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) projects as having a 1 percent chance of experiencing a flood in a given year. But the agency’s maps may not accurately reflect contemporary flood risk. This week’s chart, which is based on modeling by First Street Foundation that includes updated precipitation data, shows the change in risk that a “100-year” flood will occur in a specified area. For example, a flood that the Federal Emergency Management Agency expects to hit Houston once every 100 years now is expected to hit the city once every 13 years, according to the modeling by First Street Foundation. Northeastern states, parts of Appalachia, and the northern coast of California also are expected to see a marked increase in flooding events.
