Tag Archives: Journal Article
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Impact of mandatory energy audits on building energy use

Publications

Constantine Kontokosta, Danielle Spiegel-Feld & Sokratis Papadopoulos Nature Energy (2020) Cities are increasingly adopting energy policies that reduce information asymmetries and knowledge gaps through data transparency, including energy disclosure and mandatory audit requirements for existing buildings. Although such audits impose non-trivial costs on building owners, their energy use impacts have not been empirically evaluated. Here […]

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Closing the high seas to fishing: A club approach

Publications

Jessica Green & Bryce RudykMarine Policy, Volume 115, May 2020, 103855The world’s fisheries are governed by a vast, and largely ineffective, set of international and regional institutions. If we are to preserve and manage what remains of the oceans’ fisheries, bolder solutions are needed. In this paper, we present a new approach: closing the high […]

Pages from Emissions Trading for Buildings

Emissions Trading for Buildings?

Publications

In April of 2019, the New York City Council passed groundbreaking legislation that caps the amount of greenhouse gases that large building owners can emit, or cause to be emitted, for free. The new law, known as Local Law 97 of 2019 (“Local Law 97”), holds great promise for reducing building energy use, which accounts […]

UER

The Urban Environmental Renaissance

Publications

Authors: Katrina Wyman and Danielle Spiegel-Feld City governments were an important source of environmental protection in the United States from the 1800s until well into the 1900s. However, since Congress passed a series of landmark environmental statutes in the 1970s, scholars have primarily equated environmental law with federal law. To the extent that scholars consider […]

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Do Mandatory Energy Audits Reduce Building Energy Use?: A Bayesian Analysis of New York City’s Local Law 87

Issues, Publications

Cities are experimenting with a range of policy and regulatory tools to reduce energy use in the building sector as a pathway to substantial carbon emission reductions. Increasingly, cities are turning to policies that reduce information asymmetries and knowledge gaps through data transparency, focusing on existing buildings and the potential to achieve up to 50% […]

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Expanding Green Roofs in New York City: Towards a Location-Specific Tax Incentive

Issues, Publications

Vegetated, or “green,” roofs provide numerous social and environmental benefits to urban areas. Compared with conventional roofs, green roofs promote biodiversity, reduce building energy use, decrease noise, and improve the productivity of solar photovoltaic installations. They can also mitigate the urban heat island effect and reduce stormwater runoff, thereby diminishing flooding and pollution of local waterways. […]

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Linking Across Borders: Opportunities and Obstacles for a Joint Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative-Western Climate Initiative Market

Issues, Publications

Despite the strong consensus in the scientific community that anthropogenic climate change requires urgent attention, neither the United States nor Canada has implemented a comprehensive national policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  Into this void have stepped two regional cap-and-trade programs that regulate greenhouse gas emissions in parts of both countries.  One, the Regional Greenhouse […]

climaticchange

March 2017: Building blocks: a strategy for near-term climate action

Publications

Authors: Richard Stewart, Michael Oppenheimer and Bryce Rudyk The Paris Agreement cemented a new framework for global climate policy based on the voluntary and non-legally binding emission reduction actions by both developed and developing countries. The building blocks strategy for climate action discussed in this Special Issue is well adapted to and strongly complements this […]

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Allocating the Economic Benefits of Renewable Energy Between Stakeholders on Small Island Developing States (SIDS): Arguments for a Balanced Approach

Publications

Authors: Bryce Rudyk and Danielle Spiegel-Feld For many Small Island Developing States (SIDS) the cost of producing electricity from imported fossil fuels is so high and the cost of renewable energy technology has fallen so significantly that transitioning towards renewable energy is likely to produce cost savings. A recent workshop at NYU School of Law, […]