The Nicholas Institute

Summit Speakers Focus on Need for Consensus, Collaboration and Action

By Tim Lucas

More than 400 scientists, policymakers and corporate and environmental leaders gathered at Duke University for the inaugural summit of the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Sept. 20-22.

“The most important word in the institute’s name is ‘Solutions,’” Tim Profeta, director of the institute, told participants and guests at the summit’s Wednesday evening gala at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

“The environmental challenges facing society are great, but so, too, are the opportunities for solving them,” Profeta emphasized.

Designed to have a global reach, the Nicholas Institute unites the broad resources of the Nicholas School and the Duke University community with the expertise of partners in industry, government and environmental organizations. Its mission is to provide decision makers with independent, science-driven policy analysis and to break down the political barriers to environmental progress by fostering open, ongoing dialogue between stakeholders on all sides of the issues.

One of the summit’s highlights was the presentation of results from a new national poll, commissioned by the institute, that examined how voters’ environmental views affect—or don’t affect—their voting decisions.

Among other things, the poll found that although 79 percent of all voters support “stronger national standards to protect our land, water and air,” only 22 percent said environmental concerns played a major role in their recent voting.

Panelists at the summit joined with pollsters to discuss reasons for this discrepancy and how the survey’s findings can serve as a road map for the institute in its efforts to build consensus on environmental issues. (See related story >)

The need for consensus, collaboration and action on environmental issues was a recurring theme among summit speakers.

In the summit’s opening keynote address Tuesday evening, Richard Osborne, group vice president for public and regulatory policy at Duke Energy, told a capacity crowd in Love Auditorium that “addressing climate change is a business imperative.”

Industry “must engage” with scientists and policymakers to work toward a “coordinated federal approach for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors of the economy,” he said, noting that in the absence of federal action, seven states have now developed their own climate change policies.

“This patchwork approach will create state-by-state chaos,” Osborne warned, “and it will have economic consequences.”

Industry-university initiatives such as the new Climate Change Policy Partnership, a collaboration between Duke Energy and three Duke University environmental units—the Nicholas Institute, the Nicholas School and the Center on Global Change—can help fill the policy void and guide federal policymakers toward practical, effective solutions, he said. (See related story here >)

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