Note that RFF on the Issues will not be distributed on Monday, May 27, in observance of Memorial Day.

Adapting Infrastructure Planning

Communities are continuing to be challenged by a disaster recovery framework that “is primarily aimed at rebuilding and repairing infrastructure in place.” Citing RFF research, a new report by the Government Accountability Office stresses the importance of providing “the ‘best available’ climate-related information for infrastructure planning.”

RFF Vice President for Research Molly Macauley says that such information can inform state and local decisions about infrastructure that needs to be resilient to the extremes of floods, heat waves, and other stress. However, she recommends prioritizing investments in information, noting that “not all information has value, and perfect information is not often worth the cost of acquisition,” and offers further suggestions for what to prioritize here.

Ice Sheets on the Move

A new project between NASA, the US Geological Survey, Time magazine, Google, and Carnegie Mellon University shows time lapse satellite images from the past 30 years of change on the Earth’s surface. One set demonstrates the retreat of Alaska’s Columbia Glacier from 1984 through 2011. This rapidly melting ice could raise global sea levels by several feet in the coming years.

RFF Chauncey Starr Senior Fellow Roger Cooke, one of the world’s leading authorities on mathematical modeling of risk and uncertainty, is moderating an RFF First Wednesday Seminar on June 12 that will examine how to quantify the uncertainty around the effects of climate change on ice sheets. Panelists will discuss how policymakers can use the available data and better understand the uncertainty. RSVP for this event here.

Environmental Information in Developing Countries

Last week the editorial board of Nature wrote about the importance merging economic and environmental agendas, noting: “Poorer nations are entitled to follow the path to prosperity . . . But it is in all of our interests to find a more sustainable way for them to do so.” However, developing nations often lack the institutional capacity to effectively use conventional command-and-control regulation.

A new book co-authored by RFF Senior Fellow Allen Blackman provides a case study of an alternative approach in Indonesia based on public disclosure of information about polluters’ environmental performance. They note that the program “has helped raise the average rate of compliance with environmental regulations from thirty to seventy percent.”