Presented by Drew Shindell (Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University)

The Paris Agreement recognizes the "social, economic and environmental value of voluntary mitigation actions and their co-benefits for adaptation, health and sustainable development." Yet strategies to mitigate climate change often do not explicitly consider impacts apart from climate change. A prime example is European policy to encourage use of diesel vehicles in order to mitigate climate change, which led to worsening air pollution. Another example are the scenarios developed in support of climate modeling, which choose economically optimal pathways to achieve climate targets that ignore non-climate impacts. I will discuss research to provide decision-support tools that allow multiple impacts to be assessed, focusing on climate, air quality, and agriculture, and including the economic valuation of these impacts. Results span a range from emission metrics to complex physical and socio-economic models to fit a variety of applications, examples of which will be presented. Such tools enable policy makers to "put a price on the invisible", thereby tailoring decisions to achieve priority policy goals via regulatory or market interventions.

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The 2019 Cornell University Climate Change Seminar meets Monday afternoons through May 6. This university-wide seminar provides important views on the critical issue of climate change, drawing from many perspectives and disciplines. Experts from Cornell University and other universities will present an overview of the science of climate change and climate change models, the implications for agriculture, ecosystems, and food systems, and provide important economic, ethical, and policy insights on the issue.

The seminar is free and open to the Cornell and Ithaca Community at large.

Organized and sponsored by the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering, the Cornell Institute for Climate Smart Solutions, and the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future.