II. SAMPLE PROJECT OVERVIEWS

By the fall of 2009, the proposed beginning of this fellowship, the European Union will have accumulated over four years of experience with greenhouse gas emissions reduction under Phases I & 2 of their Emissions Trading System (ETS)   I propose to examine allowance allocations, one of the most important aspects of this program and critical for the design of a future greenhouse gas control program in the United States.

 

I propose to examine the key political-economy-question—how do you allocate the allowances? From a pure economic perspective, this question is irrelevant. It does not matter whether allowances are sold or given away—the scarcity of the allowances will ensure they will have a price that reflects the marginal cost of controlling GHG emissions. However, from a distributional perspective, the allocation of allowances is the question. It is estimated that the value of allowances in the U.S. under a system similar to that of the EU ETX, would be over $100 billion.  Clearly, if you are a firm producing greenhouse gases, it matters to you whether you have to buy them or get them for free….The other side of the auction question is what would be done with the revenue raised from an allowance auction? Again, powerful political interests square off over this question. Some say the money should be used to offset the impact of higher fuel costs on the poor. Some say use it to promote R&D in renewable energy and conservation. The coal industry wants it spent on R&D for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) that will allow the continued use of coal by capturing and storing CO2 emissions underground. It could also be used to reduce other taxes, pay down the debt, fund social security or anything on which the government spends money. There is also the “Christmas Tree” approach of a little something for everyone.

This project begins with the hypothesis that the pedagogical perspectives and practices of teachers will be influenced by their personal and professional identities. These identities are shaped and mitigated by race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and other personal characteristics. However, they also are influenced by the institutional structures and ideological traditions embedded within the national educational context. The goal is to understand the ways in which [host country] teachers experience and understand what it means to be a teacher, and how these experiences and understandings are mitigated by the different identity positions they hold. Using multiple methods, including survey, observations, interviews, and journaling, the project will map the teacher-identity landscape and how teachers navigate within this landscape in order to provide a broader understanding of what it means to be a teacher in [host country] in the 21st century.

This interdisciplinary research and teaching project has several clearly-defined goals. The overarching theme is to increase understanding of the interrelatedness of Iceland’s climate and society, especially over the last 300 or so years. More specifically, to evaluate and analyze the nature of environmental and economic impacts on Icelandic society during this time period, and to consider what strategies may have been used by the population of the time to adapt to, or mitigate, these impacts. Using historical documentary evidence, the general goals of the project include: a) The construction of time series of climate data for temperature and precipitation; b) The updating of the record of incidence of sea ice reaching the coasts of Iceland; c) The evaluation of sea fisheries history in the context of climatic and environmental changes; d) The evaluation of historical variations in grass growth and hay yield in the light of both economic practices and climatic variations; e) The evaluation of the impacts of volcanic eruptions, avalanches and other environmental phenomena on Icelandic society. The information gathered will form the basis for a book to be entitled: Climate and Society in [Host Country]