MIT is one of six organizations to receive support in the first round of grants from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation as part of its $100 million initiative to tackle global climate change.
The New York-based foundation announced today that it awarded the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR) a $500,000 grant for a project entitled Lessons from Emissions Trading Experience for Emerging CO2 Trading Proposals and Cost Containment Measures. The goal of the work is to evaluate policies relevant to U.S. climate policy design, including the European Union Emissions Trading System, cost-containment policy options, and the interplay between federal, state, and regional climate programs.
Dr. A. Denny Ellerman, senior lecturer at MIT's Sloan School of Management, and Paul L. Joskow, professor of economics and management and director of CEEPR, will lead the project.
"MIT's Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research has a demonstrated capability for analyzing and designing policies that limit harmful atmospheric emissions cost effectively," said Ernest J. Moniz, professor of Physics and director of the MIT Energy Initiative said. "The extension of CEEPR's studies on evolving European, Northeast United States, and California greenhouse gas emissions policies, now made possible by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, will contribute significantly to the Foundation's important and ambitious program aimed at climate change risk mitigation."
MIT's Vice President for Research Claude R. Canizares said: "MIT applauds the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation's commitment to addressing climate change. We are delighted to partner with the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to analyze lessons learned from existing emissions trading programs and to better inform the U.S. policy debate on carbon dioxide trading regimes. The Foundation's support of this project enables MIT's Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research to expand greatly its work in this critically important area, and we are grateful to the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation for giving us this opportunity."Â
Andrew Bowman, the director of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation's Climate Change Initiative, said MIT and the other recipients of the first round of grants will deliver high-quality analysis and recommendations on the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to tackling climate change through government policy.
"This work will be critical for Congress and the international community as they step up the debate about how to address climate change and global energy problems, and we are pleased to be able to support it," Bowman said.
Since its founding in the mid-1970's, CEEPR has served as the focus at MIT for research activity in energy economics, and in environmental economics since the early 1990s. CEEPR promotes careful and objective research at MIT on issues related to energy and environmental policy, and publishes the results of that research to support the decision-making processes of government and industry. The Center is jointly sponsored by MIT's Sloan School of Management, the Department of Economics, and the Laboratory for Energy and the Environment.
The mission of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation is to improve the quality of people's lives through grants supporting the performing arts, environmental conservation, medical research and the prevention of child maltreatment, and through preservation of the cultural and environmental legacy of Doris Duke's properties.
