Cornell Climate Change

Program or topic

Carbon cap-and-trade policy costs and benefits, particularly in relation to agriculture, forestry, and other land uses.

Department(s) or unit(s)

Applied Economics and Management

Contact information

Antonio Bento
Associate Professor
amb396@cornell.edu

Program goals

Economic analyses relevant to carbon cap-and-trade policies, particularly in the agriculture and forestry sectors. One aspect has been developing an integrated framework to examine the economic costs, land use impacts, and greenhouse gas emissions resulting from alternative biofuels policies under the 2007 Energy Bill.

Brief Description

Our biofuels project examines the effects of three policies: (a) gradual increases in the federal mandates for corn-based ethanol and cellulosic biofuels; (b) the volumetric tax credit to encourage the production of ethanol; and (c) subsidies to promote a faster adoption of more efficient and cleaner biofuel technologies.

By capturing the interactions between the relevant agents in the economy (households, landowners, ethanol producers, regular gasoline refiners, and food producers), our framework will be the first to provide a complete picture of the potential impacts of biofuel policies and allow us to estimate the overall costs and to describe distributional impacts of these three policies to the different agents in the economy.

This framework will also be useful to compute the overall greenhouse gas emissions resulting from biofuels policies. Comparisons between standard greenhouse gas estimates based on life-cycle models, which don’t account for land use adjustments resulting from biofuels policies, will be compared against our results.

For more information

• Antonio Bento’s profile page
• Vivo impact statement
• Video: The Heat Is On: Biofuels and Climate Change

Program or topic

Modeling impacts of projected climate change on northeastern forests

Department(s) or unit(s)

Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Contact information

Christine L. Goodale, Assistant Professor
clg33@cornell.edu

Program goals

My lab group examines multiple factors that affect forest carbon balance, as an important sink for atmospheric CO2. These factors include land-use change, atmospheric N deposition, and climate change itself.

Brief Description

We are developing new routines for decomposition and carbon allocation for the PnET-CN forest ecosystem model to quantify changes in forest C, N, and water balance across the Northeast U.S. in responses to changes in climate and atmospheric chemistry for 1900 to 2000 and projected to 2100 (NICCR, NSRC). Simulations of forest growth over the past 50-80 years will be compared with observed forest growth trends to test model hypotheses on the effects of CO2, N deposition, and climate over the last 50-100 years (NSF).

For more information

Websites:

• More information about this and other projects on the Goodale Research page.

Publications:

• Ollinger, SV, CL Goodale, K Hayhoe, JP Jenkins. 2008. Potential effects of climate change and rising CO2 on ecosystem processes in Northeastern U.S. forests. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 13:467-485.

Program or topic

Energy studies in the College of Engineering

Department(s) or unit(s)

College of Engineering and other collaborating departments and units.

Program goals

Energy research can be found in every Department and School of the College of Engineering and many faculty participate in multidisciplinary projects that span two or more Colleges at Cornell. This website provides a portal to research and other activities, many of which address climate change concerns.

Brief Description

See Energy Studies research page for information projects including:

• Solar Cells
• Wind and Water
• Biofuels
• Geothermal
• Fossil Fuels
• Fusion
• Power Systems
• Combustion Engineering
• Fuel Cells
• Carbon Footprint
• Climate Change
• Computation & Modeling

For more information

Contact the individual researchers listed on the Energy Studies research pages.

Program or topic

KAUST-Cornell Center for Energy and Sustainability

Department(s) or unit(s)

Team includes Cornell faculty from:

• Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
• Chemistry and Chemical Biology
• Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
• Materials Science and Engineering
• Physics

Contact information

See the KAUST-CU contact page.

Program goals

Investigates organic-inorganic hybrid nanomaterials for applications in carbon capture and sequestration, photovoltaics and energy storage, water desalination, and oil and gas production.

Brief Description

Created in 2008 through a generous five-year research award from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). KAUST-CU is one of four research centers world-wide funded by KAUST through its Global Research Partnership.

Research in KAUST-CU focuses on a novel class of hybrid nanomaterials recently discovered at Cornell. Termed nanoparticle ionic materials (NIMs), these organic-inorganic hybrids offer exciting opportunities for basic research and technological innovations at the forefront of materials science and engineering.

Applications of NIMs include:

• Photovoltaics and energy storage systems.
• Desalination and advanced water purification.
• Nanomaterials for oil and gas exploration and production.
• Carbon dioxide capture and advanced sequestration technologies.

Co-directors:

• Lynden A. Archer, Marjorie L. Hart Chair in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, laa25@cornell.edu
• Emmanuel P. Giannelis, Walter R. Read Professor of Engineering, epg2@cornell.edu

For more information

KAUST-Cornell Center for Energy and Sustainability (KAUST-CU)

• Publications page
• Contact page

Program or topic

Urban Horticulture Institute (UHI)

Department(s) or unit(s)

Horticulture

Contact information

Nina Bassuk, professor and UHI director

Program goals

UHI’s mission is to improve the quality of urban life by enhancing the functions of plants within the urban ecosystem.

Brief Description

We integrate plant stress physiology, horticultural science, plant ecology and soil science and apply them to three broad areas of inquiry:

• The selection, evaluation and propagation of superior plants with improved tolerance of biotic and abiotic stresses, and enhanced functional uses in the disturbed landscape.
• Developing improved technologies for assessing and ameliorating site limitations to improve plant growth and development.
• Developing improved transplant technologies to insure the successful establishment of plants in the urban environment.

Some ways our work helps address climate change issues include:

• Promoting Urban Forestry to reduce energy use (cooling in summer and wind protection in winter, for example) in urban areas by choosing trees that are tolerant to urban stresses and ameliorating soil to enable trees to grow in pavement.
• Combining the technologies of porous asphalt, CU-Structural Soil, and turf to design green parking lots that capture stormwater and cool air temperatures in the urban core.
• Reduce energy needed to maintain urban trees and sequester carbon.

For more information

• Urban Horticulture Institute website.
• Community Forestry website.

Program or topic

Applying Behavioral Economics to Climate Policy

Department(s) or unit(s)

Johnson Graduate School of Management

Contact information

Ben Ho, Assistant Professor
beho@vassar.edu

Program goals

To use insights from behavioral economics to better inform climate policy.

Brief Description

How can we use ideas such as guilt or norms or social comparison from behavioral economics to inform the policy debate on climate change, and how do social factors like identity and social networks influence our consumption decisions.

For More Information:

Ben Ho’s profile page

Program or topic

Project Bud Break

Department(s) or unit(s)

Department of Natural Resources

Contact information

David Weinstein
Senior Research Associate, Department of Natural Resources
Assistant Director of Sustainable Initiatives, Cornell Agricultural Experiment Station.
(607)351-4214
daw5@cornell.edu

Program goals

• Monitoring native plants to identify effects of global change
• Identifying carbon sequestration solutions to reduce atmospheric carbon
• Identifying solutions to improve sustainability of local resource management
• Analyzing ecosystem response to atmospheric pollution, including climate change

Brief Description

Under the leadership of David Weinstein, Project Bud Break is creating a citizen science network of plant phenology observers to monitor effects of global climate change on native plants in central New York. Observations made by network members will help us better understand how global warming affects plant flowering and growth.

Weinstein has also evaluated the carbon sequestration potential of Cornell-owned forests and farms and is developing and implementing a culture of sustainability for the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station. This involves the development of a computerized decision matrix that will help prioritize where investments in sustainability projects can most effectively be made. With the President’s Climate Change Implementation Committee, he is helping Cornell University design a plan to achieve climate neutrality (zero net greenhouse gas emissions) on the Cornell campus, In addition, his research involves analyzing and modeling the systems controlling plant response to environment, including construction of computer simulation models of the ecosystem dynamics in many different types of forests and landscapes.

For more information

Websites:

• David Weinstein’s Home Page
• Project Bud Break

Key publications:

• Weinstein, D.A. 2007. Project Budbreak: Monitoring how climate change affects native plants. Cornell Plantations Magazine. 62(2): 12-19.
• Hong, B., D. A. Weinstein and D. P. Swaney. 2006. Assessment of ozone effects on nitrate export from Hubbard Brook Watershed 6. Environmental Pollution. 141: 8-21.