News - Katie Warnell

An executive order signed Monday by North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper launched an ambitious initiative to conserve and restore the state's forests and wetlands, reports Coastal Review. Katie Warnell, senior policy associate at the Nicholas Institute, said the order also addresses many data gaps and limitations that "hinder planning for the sustainable management of North Carolina’s lands and waters."

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper issued an executive order Monday to permanently conserve and reforest North Carolina’s wetlands and to plant urban trees, activities that could replenish 3 million acres by 2040, reports NC Newsline. "The order’s ambitious goals for land conservation and restoration will preserve and enhance the many benefits North Carolina’s natural and working lands provide to everyone who lives in or visits the state," said Katie Warnell, senior policy associate at the Nicholas Institute.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper on Monday signed an executive order designed to support sustainable management of the state’s forests, farms and wetlands. In North Carolina, these natural and working lands provide numerous social, economic and environmental benefits, including sequestering carbon and supporting ecosystem and community resilience. Nicholas Institute experts Lydia Olander and Katie Warnell provided comments for the media.

A Duke University team collaborated with the Department of the Interior to produce a practical, comprehensive resource on implementing nature-based solutions.

The Department of the Interior today announced new steps to utilize nature-based solutions in its efforts to tackle the climate crisis. Those include the launch of the Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap, a new tool developed in partnership with the Nicholas Institute to provide DOI with guidance on implementing nature-based solutions.

The Biden-Harris administration announced new actions to advance nature-based climate solutions during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP28). The list included the Department of the Interior’s Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap, an online tool created in partnership with Duke University that provides strategies, training resources, and successful examples for adopting nature-based solutions throughout the United States.

Restoring pocosin wetlands represents an opportunity for North Carolina to combat climate change while supporting community health, wildlife and recreation, write Katie Warnell (Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability) and Curt Richardson (Duke University Wetland Center) in a LinkedIn article.

In the first post of a series on the Latitude blog, PLOS is highlighting how peer-reviewed research in its journals is helping to fill knowledge gaps identified by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Featured articles include a June 2022 study, by Nicholas Institute experts Katie Warnell and Lydia Olander and coauthor Carolyn Currin, that models how sea level rise in mid-Atlantic states could drive coastal marshes inland and release carbon in the process.

The Conservation Trust for North Carolina and the Nicholas Institute have designed a pair of online tools for conservation organizations and land trusts to evaluate the benefits of North Carolina's natural and working lands to climate resilience, adaptation and mitigation.

Little attention has been paid to the economic benefits of natural systems beyond basic measures of GDP. Katie Warnell spoke with Context about how quantifying their value could help drive conservation and preservation policy making.