Session one of the Nature-based Solutions: Current Issues webinar series focuses on assessing the costs and benefits of NbS. How can we account for all the benefits NbS provide? How do they compare to more traditional (gray infrastructure) solutions? What is the return on investment for NbS?

As extreme weather takes an increasing toll across the country, congressional interest in making communities more resilient is on the rise. Resilience funding was a prominent area of bipartisan climate cooperation in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. And bipartisan congressional proposals to improve U.S. climate resilience are being put forward in the House and Senate. 

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) invites you to a briefing on policies and practices to address sea level rise. Sea level rise is a unique challenge for coastal communities and for policymakers. How will impacts from sea level rise compound impacts from extreme storm events? What infrastructure and communities will be impacted over different time horizons? When should funding be allocated to rebuild or armor coastlines and what are alternative options?

Third-party certification prevails as a necessary oversight mechanism in complex global food production systems. It is ultimately a substitute for trust. At local and regional scales, however, certification risks becoming a cumbersome and costly barrier—crowding out simpler, efficient and low-cost means for ensuring safety and sustainability. Relationship-centered, home-grown institutions—like community-supported agriculture (CSAs), farmers markets, and direct trade approaches—nurture trust among food system stakeholders and consumers.

Duke students, join Nicholas Institute experts Lydia Olander, Sara Mason, and Elizabeth Losos for an informal conversation about climate resilience policy in the United States and internationally.

This virtual event will present the World Bank’s most recent study of the effects of climate change on human migration. Piotr Plewa (Duke University) will host the conversation with Kanta Kumari and Viviane Clement, World Bank experts on climate change.

How should the U.S. move forward with a climate resilience strategy that places racial, economic, and environmental justice at its core? At this virtual event, Biden-Harris administration officials will exchange ideas with leaders from the resilience, environmental justice, and climate policy communities.

Habitat restoration is now being championed as a scalable strategy to reverse global habitat declines. This Oceans @ Duke panel discussion will include experts in the ecosystem restoration, who will provide insights into vital questions related to this topic.

Jen Weiss, Senior Policy Associate, will lead a discussion on "Exploring the Opportunities of the NC Clean Energy Fund" as part of the 2021 Appalachian Energy Summit.

As world leaders attend the Leaders Summit on Climate, the Resilience Roadmap project convened a one-hour conversation to hear from resilience leaders. The Resilience Roadmap project is a non-partisan project convened in 2021 by the Duke University Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and Susan Bell Associates.

Supported by the Kavli Foundation, this webinar is the 4th in a series of 6 webinars being organized to coincide with JSPG and AAAS’s joint call for policy position papers which will invite students, post-docs, policy fellows, and early career researchers to consider ways we can reimagine American science by building on and from Vannevar Bush’s Endless Frontier. These webinars will engage thought leaders from science policy to share their perspectives on where U.S. science policy could be enhanced across five thematic areas.

Panelists from the US Climate Alliance, the World Resources Institute, and Duke University will discuss their efforts to include blue carbon as part of greenhouse gas inventories and resource maps.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill caused significant environmental, ecological, and economic damage to the Gulf of Mexico region. Since the spill, multiple projects have been funded to restore and conserve the Gulf region's natural environment. This webinar, organized by the GRP’s Offshore Situation Room planning committee, will focus on the decision-making frameworks for ecosystem restoration and economic recovery.

This entirely student-led conference aims to bring together students, practitioners, and faculty to collectively explore the links, trade-offs, and tensions at the nexus of climate change, oceans, and coastal ecosystems.

Nicholas Institute policy associate Katie Warnell will speak about mapping coastal protection and carbon storage for climate and resiliency planning during the National Coastal and Estuarine Summit.