Scott Coffin, a research scientist at the California State Water Resources Control Board, spoke at a virtual meeting of the Washington Round Table on Public Policy on June 23, 2021. He discussed the initial steps being taken toward managing microplastics in California, as well as the challenges and barriers to regulating microplastics under traditional regulatory…

Ellen Hanak, vice president of the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) and director of the PPIC Water Policy Center, spoke at a virtual meeting of the Washington Round Table on Public Policy on June 9, 2021. Her talk was titled, “Sustainably Managing California’s Groundwater in the Midst of a Prolonged Drought.” Background The Western…

In May 2021, the UN Environment Programme released a report titled “Global Methane Assessment: Benefits and Costs of Mitigating Methane Emissions.” It highlights the critical role that cutting methane emissions, including from the fossil fuel industry, plays in slowing the rate of global warming. There are multiple benefits to acting including: the rapid reduction of…

Heatwaves in the world’s oceans have become over 20 times more frequent due to human influence. This is what researchers from the Oeschger Centre for Climate Research at the University of Bern are now able to prove. Marine heatwaves destroy ecosystems and damage fisheries. A marine heatwave (ocean heatwave) is an extended period of time…

Flooding is the most expensive natural disaster in the United States, costing over $1 trillion in inflation adjusted dollars since 1980. While institutional real estate investors and insurers have been able to privately purchase flood risk information from for-profit companies, the majority of Americans have relied on Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) maps to understand…

Brad Udall, a Senior Water and Climate Research Scientist at Colorado State University, spoke at a virtual meeting of the RNRF Washington Round Table on Public Policy on March 9, 2021. He discussed the imbalance between water supply and demand in the Colorado River basin, how climate change is exacerbating the issue, and the ongoing renegotiation…

The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is presently developing regulations (the “Mining Code”) to govern the exploration and exploitation of mineral resources of the international seabed (or “Area”). Whilst the financial mechanism is a critical component of this Mining Code, its development has been delegated to the Open-Ended Ad Hoc Working Group of the Council. These…

As of January 1, 2021, a group of European government funding agencies and private funding organizations known as “cOAlition S” began implementing its “Plan S” initiative to promote full and immediate open access in scientific publishing. Under this initiative, research funded by cOAlition S members has to be published in open access journals, on open…

Brexit has created an uncertain future for the UK’s environmental governance. Withdrawal from the EU means that the UK will no longer be subject to the laws and accountability structures that have defined its environmental policy for decades. Early in the Brexit process, it was unclear whether environmental considerations would play much of a role…