Research
Research
Participants in the Climate Change Research Network are examining questions such as:
- What are the aggregate emissions from individuals and households, and how do those emissions compare to the emissions from industry and other source categories?
- Which individual behaviors release the greatest amounts of greenhouse gas emissions?
- What are the greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicle idling and how can they be reduced?
- How do personal carbon calculators vary in their outputs and conversion factors?
- Which social psychological theories have the greatest explanatory power for greenhouse gas-emitting behaviors?
- How do people perceive and value climate change risks, particularly when they are remote?
- How should these climate change risks be valued for policy benefit assessments?
- What strategies are chosen by those policy advocates and to what extent are these strategies constrained by the political system in which they evolve? What changes in laws and policies can generate the most cost-effective reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from individual behavior?
- What changes in the administration and staffing of government agencies will be required if climate change laws and policies are adopted?
Project Sponsors
Project activities have been supported by Vanderbilt Law School's Regulatory Program, the Vanderbilt Center for the Study of Religion and Culture, the Vanderbilt Center for Environmental Management Studies, and the Vanderbilt Institute for Energy and the Environment.
“I’m examining how environmental law will be influenced by the harm created by climate change. The Climate Change Research Network brings together scholars at the law school with other schools at Vanderbilt. I’m very impressed with the work being done across departments such as Vanderbilt Institute for Energy and the Environment, the Owen Graduate School of Management, the School of Engineering, science departments and the Human and Organizational Development program. I wanted to be a part of such a timely and relevant interdisciplinary collaboration.”
- J.B. Ruhl, the David Daniels Allen Distinguished Chair in Law