Energy Policy, Planning, and Economic Development

Policy, planning, and economic development at Carolina includes research rooted in the perspectives and methods of a wide range of applicable social-science and related humanities disciplines. These disciplines are particularly useful for shedding light on questions such as:

• How human behavior patterns of energy use, settlement and transportation affect and are affected by climate change.
• How market behavior and economic development opportunities affect and are affected by climate change.
• How public policy incentives influence these behavioral patterns, at the levels of individuals, business and government organizations, communities, and societal rules and institutions.
• How public policy and market incentives can be used to promote more sustainable patterns of human activity. These incentives may operate at the local, state, national, or international levels, or across combinations of these levels.

These questions are being addressed in a variety of widely interdisciplinary research areas that draw on Carolina's unique ability to bring together faculty from policy, planning, law, business, government, etc.

Community carbon reduction: The focus of the research is on the mechanisms by which municipalities, institutions and individuals can identify, assess and implement measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 60% before 2050. This includes working directly with these groups to develop carbon dioxide inventories; identify the greatest contributing components; assess the political, economic, technological, etc., feasibility of alternative strategies for reduction; and develop the institutional mechanisms needed to coordinate introduction of these strategies in a community. To date, this research has focused on two communities: the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Town of Chapel Hill; and the University of Cambridge and the City of Cambridge (England).

Comparative policy analysis: The focus of this research is on understanding comparative state and national policy incentives influencing mitigation of, and adaptation to, global warming. This includes issues of energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, environmental impact reduction, promotion of more sustainable economic and social opportunities, and the identification and dissemination of best practices for these purposes. Faculty and students currently are conducting preliminary research on models and options for state energy policy advice and support organizations, and developing research on the effects and effectiveness of state policy incentives for promoting energy efficiency, renewable energy sources, and sustainable use of energy and the environment more generally.

Post-disaster adaptation and preventive initiatives: This research focuses on post-disaster preventive policies and community-level greenhouse gas reduction policies. Disaster events like Hurricane Katrina provide significant windows of opportunities to enact major new policy initiatives to alter pre-disaster built environments that otherwise are not normally available. The faculty involved are examining factors that cause localities to implement energy efficiency policy initiatives after Katrina, and also to examine the effectiveness of these policies in carbon dioxide reduction and energy efficiency.

Faculty in Carolina's Department of City and Regional Planning and the Center for Urban and Regional Studies have extensive experience developing and assessing designs for transport systems in ways that minimize energy use and environmental impacts.

Other aspects of the research are examining why about 100 local jurisdictions in the U.S. voluntarily committed - in the absence of a federal mandate - to the Cities for Climate Protection campaign. This includes examining the types of policy initiatives that have been adopted, the effectiveness of these initiatives in reducing local energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, and the local socioeconomic capacity factors that explains local adoption to climate change policy initiatives. Further research is helping communities with Emergency Preparedness.

Transportation behavior and planning: This research focuses on energy issues as they relate to transportation and sustainability. It includes development of innovations that can lead to sustainable transportation; behavioral issues related to energy consumption and travel demand; and energy planning and related policy issues such as tradeoffs between fuel efficiency of the vehicle fleet and the safety of occupants. One current project is a nationwide study of residential developments to understand whether there are behavioral differences in how residents of neo-traditional developments travel, purchase fuel efficient vehicles, and use energy. Further research considers the ecology of energy consumption at the individual level, as this is influenced by characteristics such as personal and interpersonal attributes, as well as neighborhood, community, regional, national and international factors that promote or hinder behaviors related to energy consumption. The Advanced Modeling System for Assessing Long-Term Regional Development Patterns, Travel Behavior, Emissions, and Air Quality program is testing whether development patterns can significantly influence the spatial characteristics and quantity of emissions from on-road mobile sources and rail transit vehicles. Finally, the research program includes a focus on the role of technological change, economic and social changes, and public policy on future energy demand, air emissions and environmental outcomes. Tools such as risk analysis, decision analysis and uncertainty analysis are being applied to policy issues that intersect with energy, transportation, environment and public health.

Population, land use change, and environmental impacts: At the heart of all environmental issues is the use of materials and energy, which in turn is rooted in the ways in people settle the land. The Carolina Population Center has a large program of research and training on all aspects of the relationship between population dynamics, land use change and environmental impacts. The focus is international, including research in Ecuador, Nepal, the Philippines, Tanzania, and Thailand.