In a climate change-focused issue of Choices Magazine, the Nicholas Institute's Brian Murray explores why carbon markets have not delivered agricultural emissions reductions in the United States. Beyond the political failure of a national, economy-wide, cap-and-trade program, he points to the minor role of agriculture in the carbon markets that do exist and to unforeseen adoption hurdles and transaction costs. He suggests that the sector’s GHG mitigation could ramp up as part of recently broader use of carbon markets and with the support of targeted public and private sector programs.

Billy Pizer, a faculty fellow at Duke’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy, was among the Duke representatives at the Navigating the American Carbon World Conference in Los Angeles, California, this week. Pizer, who led a panel on the Opportunities and Challenges for Carbon Markets under the Clean Power Plan, reflects on three issues brought up at the conference.

The Nature Conservancy's (TNC) purchase of 165,000 acres of land in Washington’s Cascade Mountains and Montana’s Blackfoot River Valley is a recent example of "impact investing"--putting money into a business or nonprofit to receive a financial return and generate social or environmental change. To raise the money in a timely manner and to negotiate the acquisition, TNC relied on NatureVest, a division of the conservancy that functions much like a bank, raising money from institutions and individuals who care about the environment and then investing that money in conservation projects that can generate  investor repayments. "I think this will be one of TNC’s most significant land deals ever," said Advisory Board member and TNC president and CEO Mark Tercek. "The acquisition connects vast landscapes previously broken up into a checkerboard pattern of public and private ownership. In the process, it conserves vast swaths of wildlife habitat, protects sources of clean water, and expands recreational access. In my view, no organization other than TNC could have taken on this project."