School of Public Policy

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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.

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Subject: search.filters.subject.climate change

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Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    An Econometric Analysis of Sea Surface Temperatures, Sea Ice Concentrations and Ocean Surface Current Velocities
    (MDPI, 2022-12-01) Bhargava, Alok; Echenique, Juan A.
    This paper analyzed quarterly longitudinal data for 64,800 1 × 1 degree grids during 2000–2019 on sea surface temperatures, sea ice concentrations, and ocean surface current zonal and meridional velocities in the Northern and Southern hemispheres. The methodological framework addressed the processing of remote sensing signals, interdependence between sea surface temperatures and sea ice concentrations, and combining zonal and meridional velocities as the eddy kinetic energy. Dynamic and static random effects models were estimated by maximum likelihood and stepwise methods, respectively, taking into account the unobserved heterogeneity across grids. The main findings were that quarterly sea surface temperatures increased steadily in the Northern hemisphere, whereas cyclical patterns were apparent in Southern hemisphere; sea ice concentrations declined in both hemispheres. Second, sea surface temperatures were estimated with large negative coefficients in the models for sea ice concentrations for the hemispheres; previous sea ice concentrations were negatively associated with sea surface temperatures, indicating feedback loops. Third, sea surface temperatures were positively and significantly associated with eddy kinetic energy in Northern hemisphere. Overall, the results indicated the importance of reducing sea surface temperatures via reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and the dumping of pollutants into oceans for maintaining sea ice concentrations and enhancing global sustainability.
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    Regional Clean Energy Innovation
    (2020-02-20) Surana, Kavita; Williams, Ellen D.; Krawczyk, Wojciech; Montgomery, Michael; O'Neill, Jon; Thomas, Zachary; Zhang, Ying
    This report provides data-driven approaches and insights for federal and state planning to accelerate clean energy innovation by aligning programs with regional resources and economic development goals.
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    Accelerating Climate-Mitigating Technology Development and Deployment
    (2019-04) Edwards, Morgan R.; Surana, Kavita; Thomas, Zachary; Williams, Ellen D.
    Policymakers and investors alike covet better information about the risks and potential of early-stage technologies. The motivation for the workshop on accelerating climate-mitigating technology development and deployment was to explore how different perspectives from the policy, analysis, and investor communities involved in clean energy innovation may be combined for more effective decision making.
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    Socio-Technical Transition as a Co-Evolutionary Process: Innovation and the Role of Niche Markets in the Transition to Motor Vehicles
    (2008-04-25) Birky, Alicia Kim; Ruth, Matthias; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Significant reductions in greenhouse emissions from personal transportation will require a transition to an alternative technology regime based on renewable energy sources. Two bodies of research, the quasi-evolutionary (QE) model and the multi-level perspective (MLP) assert that processes within niches play a fundamental role in such transitions. This research asks whether the description of transitions based on this niche hypothesis and its underlying assumptions is consistent with the historical U.S. transition to motor vehicles at the beginning of the 20th century. Unique to this dissertation is the combination of the perspective of the entrepreneur with co-evolutionary approaches to socio-technical transitions. This approach is augmented with concepts from the industry life-cycle model and with a taxonomy of mechanisms of learning. Using this analytic framework, I examine specifically the role of entrepreneurial behavior and processes within and among firms in the co-evolution of technologies and institutions during the transition to motor vehicles. I find that niche markets played an important role in the development of the technology, institutions, and the industry. However, I also find that the diffusion of the automobile is not consistent with the niche hypothesis in the following ways: 1) product improvements and cost reductions were not realized in niche markets, but were achieved simultaneously with diffusion into mass markets; 2) in addition to learning-by-doing and learning-by-interacting with users, knowledge spillovers and interacting with suppliers were critical in this process; 3) cost reductions were not automatic results of expanding markets, but rather arose from the strategies of entrepreneurs based on personal perspectives and values. This finding supports the use of a behavioral approach with a micro-focus in the analysis of socio-technical change I also find that the emergence and diffusion of the motor vehicle can only be understood by considering the combination of developments and processes in multiple regimes, within niches, and within the wider technical, institutional, and ecological complex (TIEC). For the automobile, the process of regime development was more consistent with a fit-stretch pattern of gradual unfolding and adaptation than one of niche proliferation and rapid regime renewal described in the literature.
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    Decarbonizing the Global Energy System: Implications for Energy Technology and Security
    (2005-03) Fetter, Steve; Gulden, Tim
    Since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed in 1988, it has engaged a substantial proportion of those individuals with relevant scientific expertise in the process of forming reasonable judgments about the effects of aggregate human activity on the composition of the earth’s atmosphere and about the resulting implications for global climate. It is now widely agreed that in concert with other so-called “greenhouse gases,” carbon dioxide (CO2) released from the burning of fossil fuels for energy is causing the earth’s climate to change. Over the last century, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increased from about 300 to 375 parts per million by volume (ppmv), and global average surface temperature increased by 0.4 to 0.8 oC. In the absence of policies designed to substantially reduce global emissions, scenarios developed by the IPCC indicate that CO2 concentrations will reach 550 to 1000 ppmv in 2100 and that global average surface temperature will increase by an additional 1.5 to 6 oC (IPCC 2001a). The consequences of such a temperature increase and associated changes in precipitation patterns and other climate variables are a matter of greater uncertainty and disagreement. At the lower end of the range, it is possible that nothing of global consequence will occur, and that the regional and more localized effects will be moderate enough to be handled by natural adaptation. It also conceivable—particularly at the high end of the temperature range—that abrupt, nonlinear and fundamental changes could be triggered, such as a sudden change in large-scale ocean currents, with truly massive and potentially catastrophic consequences for human societies. The IPCC has identified the possibility of extreme danger, but has been and will remain unable to reach consensus on its exact character, magnitude, probability and timing.
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    Climate Change and the Transformation of World Energy Supply
    (MacArthur Foundation Program on International Peace and Security, 1998-02) Fetter, Steve
    In December, world attention turned to Kyoto, Japan, where parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiated a protocol to reduce the greenhouse-gas emissions of the industrialized countries by 5 percent over the next ten to fifteen years. The agreement was attacked from both sides, with environmental groups claiming that deeper reductions are urgently needed, and opponents claiming that reductions are unnecessary and would curtail economic growth. Both groups are wrong. Immediate, deep reductions are neither necessary nor politically possible. We must, however, begin today to prepare for the inevitable reductions that lie ahead. Most especially, we must lay the foundation for a global transition, beginning in the next ten to twenty years, away from traditional fossil fuels.
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    Climate Change and the Transformation of World Energy Supply
    (Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University, 1999-05) Fetter, Steve
    In December 1997, world attention turned to Kyoto, Japan, where parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) negotiated a protocol to reduce the greenhouse-gas emissions of the industrialized countries by 5 percent below 1990 levels over the next ten to fifteen years. The agreement has been attacked from both sides. Environmental groups assert that much deeper reductions are urgently needed. Opponents claim that the proposed reductions are either unnecessary or premature, would curtail economic growth, or would be unfair or ineffective without similar commitments by developing countries. Both groups overstate the importance of near-term reductions in emissions. The modest reductions called for by the Kyoto agreement are a sensible first step, but only if they are part of a larger and longer-term strategy. Indeed, near-term reductions can be counterproductive if they are not implemented in a manner that is consistent with a long-term strategy to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations. The centerpiece of any long-term strategy to limit climate change is a transformation in world energy supply, in which traditional fossil fuels are replaced by energy sources that do not emit carbon dioxide. This transformation must begin in earnest in the next 10 to 20 years, and must be largely complete by 2050. Today, however, all carbon-free energy sources have serious economic, technological, or environmental drawbacks. If economically competitive and environmentally attractive substitutes are not widely available in the first half of the next century, it will be impossible to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations at acceptable levels.