An article in The Guardian highlights a special issue in the journal Energy Economics featuring carbon tax modeling studies conducted through the Stanford Energy Modeling Forum Project.

The first U.S. cap and trade program designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the electric power sector has proven so successful that some supporters are now wondering if it ought to go national, reports Utility Dive.

The public comment period for Virginia’s draft regulations to cut carbon emissions from power plants ends April 9. The draft plan aims to cap emissions from the state’s electricity sector beginning in 2020 and to reduce them 30 percent by 2030.

CBC News cites a study co-authored by the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions' Brian Murray indicating that support for British Columbia's carbon tax increased after it was implemented, perhaps after it failed to result in economic ruin.

In what Inside Climate News described as an important test of state governments' ability to counteract the Trump administration's retreat from climate policies, the nine states in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative will soon decide whether to deepen greenhouse gas emissions cuts. The media outlet noted a study by the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and the Duke University Energy Initiative finding that the main driving factor in lowering emissions in the RGGI states was RGGI's cap-and-trade program.

Some organizations and individuals have expressed interest in a carbon tax as the primary federal policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but such a tax leaves the emissions outcome uncertain. In an issue of the Harvard Environmental Law Review focusing on carbon taxes, three researchers affiliated with Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions examine options for increasing emissions certainty. Brian Murray, Billy Pizer, and Christina Reichert discuss how these options could respond to deviations from identified emissions goals as well as identify the challenges and opportunities associated with different approaches.

The Nicholas Institute’s Brian Murray told Spectrum News’s “Capital Tonight” that President Donald Trump’s decision to exit the Paris Agreement “means that the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases is now stepping away from the international process to try to address the reduction of emissions over the next several decades. What that means is that the responsibility is going to fall on the rest of the world to take those actions”—a move that “allows others to dictate the terms of trade.” He said the costs cited by President Trump for emissions reductions are “significantly overstated,” and he noted that a significant number of businesses had backed staying in the climate accord.

This past winter, Environmental Economics Program Director Brian Murray traded bike commutes in Durham for commutes by skates on Canada’s frozen Rideau Canal as a Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in Environment and Economy. There, Murray spent five months conducting research on carbon pricing systems at the University of Ottawa.

2015 marks the Nicholas Institute's 10-year anniversary, in celebration of which, we are looking back on our key environmental policy impacts. This month we highlight our role in counseling leadership on pioneering design aspects of two landmark emissions trading programs: the California Cap-and-Trade Program and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

Brian Murray, director of the Environmental Economics Program at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, has been awarded a Fulbright Visiting Research Chair Award in Environment and Economy. Through Fulbright Canada, he will spend the spring 2015 semester conducting research on carbon pricing systems abroad at the University of Ottawa.